The Pandemonium Moment
by Prinder
Summary: [Chapter 9 up] Plots and plans unfold and Yashua’s limits are tested. What kind of future is at hand and what sort of deeds are afoot?
1. Chapter 1

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: "We found another child with Stigmata…" Staged after the last episode in the series, we see how their friends have coped with the changing times. Also, see what happened to Rosette and Chrono in "Afterlife." Can a Devil, a Sinner, actually be the son of god?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter one: Holy Gates**

'_It's cool…'_ she thought, her eyes still closed as she began to wake from her slumber; her memories slowly drifting back to her. "Chrono!" She sat up abruptly. _'Aren't I supposed to be dead?'_ "Chrono!"

"He will not be here." A male voice said, followed by the sound of fabric rustling.

Rosette quickly absorbed the layout of the room as she assessed the situation. She was laying on a cool-white bed of some sort with no adornments, the floor was also white, but looked soft to step on, _'carpet?'_ She wondered. Above her was the only sign of color, pale blue with light shining across it, _'Are there windows up there?'_ Rosette looked at the person who had spoken to her; he looked old, his hands and body aged beyond her years _'not that that's saying much.'_ She thought dryly. His clothes were simple and neutral colored; being mostly tans and creams, the primary layer brushed the tops of his sandals. his skin was tanned and his hair was white and very fine; it moved lightly without any breeze, even as he stood still.

"Magdalene, or Rosette Christopher, her family-tree's 400th descendant. You lived in God's holy ways in this life closely. Yet not close enough to enter Heaven on that alone. You signed a pact with a Sinner, the lowest kind of Devil. You betrayed your virginity—not for the first time, you are the woman who knows men—both aided the Sinner Aion, and, corrupted the church of God, made yourself into an idol, caused God's people to turn from him and worship you. You pervert justice, and—" Tom listed, though most of her crimes were done at the mercy of Aion's control.

'_And I'm getting punished for that?' _she thought with annoyance. "Where is Chrono!" She demanded, jumping from the bed onto the floor; it absorbed the impact easily, but did not spring back; though, she could still not feel what was under it.

"He has returned to Pandemonium. Like the rest of his kind. You are at the First Holy Gate of Judgment, Magdalene. I am Tom, Seeker of truth."

'_An apostle?'_ she thought, not lowering her guard, "Well then, TOM, if that's REALLY your name. What is this place exactly, and why aren't I with Chrono?" She questioned.

Tom looked at her calmly, his dark brown eyes full of warmth and honesty as he spoke, "I am here to guide you to our next step. As one of the Lord's holy men, I was entrusted with the right of Question, I weigh the worth of man. In sort, I decide who ascends to Heaven, or to which Heaven they belong."

"You mean like sending Chrono to Hell, even after all he's done to help you?" She challenged him, her voice bordering on becoming shrill as her temper shortened. "And what about Witches? Do you damn them, too!"

"The Witches are placed into what they call 'summer land.' But you have made a mistake, Magdalene, he is not in Hell, he is with Pandemonium—"

"--And just where is that?" Rosette asked, cutting him off.

"Limbo, between here and Hell, with the mother of the damned."

Rosette growled, "Just how is that any different?" she balled up one fist and shook it threateningly at Tom's general direction. "Take me to God!" She demanded, "I'm going to have a few words with him!"

'_I won't let them do that to Chrono! Not after all that we've been through! I'll make God see reason even if I have to beat it into him!'_ she thought.

For the first time since they met, Tom seemed genuinely alarmed. "You misunderstand!" He cried, raising his hand, as if to will her to stop. "Judgment isn't even why you are here anyway!"

Rosette glared, but held her position, not pausing to wonder how he knew she was going to hunt God down herself, as she replied, "Then explain it to me, old man. I don't have time for this beating around the bush!"

"Devils return to Pandemonium for instruction on their next life! It is not Hell! All of their souls that are to be returned to Earth speak to Pandemonium, the guiding leader of the devil world, which has her as it's namesake! She isn't really much different then I."

"You mean that headless monster that I—"

"That you have slain for countless generations, Mary of Magdalene. You have little time left here, so we must hurry to the Decention Bridge. I have seen all that I must, and now God has seen to the rest." He said, taking her hand and pulling her along behind him. He was surprisingly strong for looking so old.

Rosette pondered his words. "What do you mean by 'we'?"

"I, along with the Lost Disciples, are to return with you to Earth. We have waited for the time to be right for so long… and that time is neigh. Time passes much slower here than it does on Earth. What only seems like a few hours or days to you or me, is years to them." He said, continuing to lead them. "Your next path has been chosen! Be blessed! God saw fit to end your brother's life soon after he finished his book so that—"

"Joshua!" Rosette gasped, her eyes wide with horror, thinking about her little brother; she didn't realize that she had interrupted him. "What do you mean 'saw fit'? Just what gives him the right to kill Joshua—"

"—You both could to be reborn as twins. He is God, after all. But we must hurry, or the window of opportunity will close." Tom finished, stopping over a spot of floor that was slightly grayer than the rest. Rosette could tell now that this wasn't Heaven, because it lacked streets of gold, or any other distinguishing character to it, rather, it was an empty landscape without a view—there was nothing beyond the wall clouds that covered them on all sides—and there wasn't another soul there, save for Tom, who stood completely still, as if expecting something to happen.

Rosette exhaled sharply as she tried to steady herself as it suddenly began to sink under them, "Wait! What about Chrono?" She asked, alarmed.

Tom shouted over the whooshing noise the Bridge made as it lowered them, their hair and clothes flapping around them both wildly, "That depends on Pandemonium! We would dearly wish for Emanuel to join us, but if he cannot convince his maternal mother—"

"Who is Emanuel! What are you talking about!" Rosette screamed; everything was moving entirely too fast for her to understand.

"Pandemonium and Jehovah are the holy creators! Nothing can be made without both of their consent! As God is all that is pure and light, Pandemonium is all that is dark and evil! Both must be present on Earth or it will be thrown off balance and be destroyed! With Jehovah's seed, and Pandemonium's egg, Virgin Mary was implanted with Emanuel! The triple-being; One third Heaven, One third Hell, One third Humanity!"

"What!"

"I said, Pandemonium and—"

Rosette hissed at him, as if to bare her fangs in warning, "I know what you said! What do you mean by it! And why tell me!"

"That doesn't matter now. As soon as we have reached the Astral Line…" his said, his voice growing distant and faint as everything around them began to turn green and their bodies began to fade into that glowing light. "Everything we know will be forgotten so that our souls can be reborn! I was only telling you to try to ease your mind about Chrono!"

"But how does knowing about how Jesus was fully conceived do that!"

"Don't you get it? Jesus, as you call him now, was a devil!" Tom called, though by this point, they were both partially submerged in the Astral Line. "Lord, your ways are forever mysterious, but why keep all of Emanuel's Disciples away until now? Why is it now that you send us forth with the Seven Virtues, the Virgin, and the Misguided Magdalene…?"

* * *

It was so hard to believe. Partly, Chrono didn't believe it was real: the dreamlike few months of serene life with Rosette before her heart stopped beating and she fell limp in his embrace in the last light of the setting sun. He could no longer tell the difference between his fantasies of her, and his real memories; so much of them ran together, did he only wish that he had seen their children? Or did he get to hold them and her in his arms, her cheeks flushed from exertion and love? Was that really her kissing him as they looked over the water? Did he ever get to feel her warmth, sleeping in the same bed? Or had he cried like a baby, as he pushed her up to sit on the swing with him as his vision, too, began to fade?

Chrono's eyes welled up with tears. He wanted to do so much! _'Why? Why did I take his hand! Why did I let him keep my horns! I could have slowed time, I could have stopped it all before it began, I could have done -something-!'_

"Wake…Wake… My son…" a voice that was soft and silky to his ears, echoed around him. But he still did not move from his place on the ridged black floor; his yellow, red rimmed, eyes staring unblinkingly at nothing. "…My son's soul is troubled… What has happened to make him weep…?"

'_How long have I been like this?'_ He wondered as a hand touched his dark purple hair, fingers gently stroking his scalp as his eyelids wavered; recognizing the touch and the small comfort it gave him. _'I want to know what's happened… but if I move, what will happen to me?'_ Salty water began to sting his eyes, _'oh god, please protect Rosette… please…' _When Chrono woke up in this place, he knew right away that Rosette was not there, which filled him with joy, but, at the same time, also filled him with unease. _'What place is this? Isn't Hell supposed to be… warmer than this?'_

"Jehovah is cruel to his son… Mother understands… Emanuel."

'_That name again… Who is she referring to? I'm Chrono. I'm Chrono!'_ his mind screamed, though his voice remained silent and his body unmoving. The moment he had realized that he wasn't sitting in a void of nothingness, this woman had been there, talking to him, calling him by her son's name.

"The pain he gives your heart," she paused to huffed, "No soul is good enough, yet every soul is too good for his son… Emanuel." She said, removing her hand from the side of his head.

Chrono, his curiosity getting the better of him, rolled over to look at the person who had been speaking. "Who—" He began to ask, his voice horse from lack of use.

Her hair was long and straight silver-white, contrasting drastically with her dark dress, which exposed scandalous amounts of flesh that was so pale that it seemed to be tinged blue. Her eyes were dark red, and her lips were painted black, which only served to make her look paler still. Her horns sleek, stemming from her forehead, folding over themselves, only to stretch out onto a flat plane on either side.

"Who are you?" he asked, this time pushing himself up with his arms into a half-sitting position. "My name is—"

"I know who you are, my son… Cursed by that father which would have you born! Damned by the race of the Virgin, from who's loins you were brought forth into the world of man! The mark of contract between -I- and JEHOVAH!" She spoke, her eyes burning with rage. "To suffer eternal anguish at the hands of Man, Angel, and Devil alike!" she growled, turning to face the dark nothingness around them, "This is how you love me? This is how you love your fallen children? This is how you care for your child! I DAMN YOU! Jehovah! I damn you to that bleak and useless Heaven of evils! May you never—"

"Please! Stop!" He did not know when, or how, but he was embracing the devil woman from behind; only vaguely aware that his own horns were back on his own head, right above his ears, though his form was still small. "I don't know who you are confusing me for, but you have to stop this. No matter who this Emanuel is, he would not want to hear his mother speaking like that."

"I am Pandemonium. Mother of Emanuel, contracted to God Divine, Keeper of Sabathani—The forsaken ones." She said, her voice lowered, the flickering lights of candles arising around them.

"Pandemonium… But you!" Chrono gasped, "You lost your head—"

"It was stolen from me by my contractor!" Pandemonium screamed, her voice choked with bitter sorrow. "In the beginning there was Heaven and Earth. The Earth was without form, and was naught but a void. Six days did God take to make life, but the seventh he did not rest, for it was on this day that he made Devils. When Humans gained Knowledge and were cast off, the Devils were stripped from Heaven and sent to return man to faith…" She whispered, reliving a nightmare from long ago. "His promise was to restore our wings! He said he would love me like no other if I granted him way to make a holy child! He took my egg and gave it to the Virgin and cast me out! Damned me to this pit as the Astral from which your horns feed! He stole my head and left my heart to bleed for eternity! The betrayal of unrequited lust." She paused to gain control of her emotions before continuing. "Turning my brethren against me with threats of being chained into eternal slavery. Twisting the hearts of man to call for my punishment and setting a fate of stone onto the woman who loves my Emanuel, the one he was cursed to love in return… she is to forever be cursed to be the only one to trigger Apocalypse, the only one to stop it and slay me… and to die, never knowing how deep my son's love is for her."

'_Rosette…' _Chrono let go of her with shock, looking at her with wide eyes. "but you have your head now—" he said, slightly confused still.

"This body in which you see is nothing but an illusion of Pandemonium… He took our child and used him for his own plans of grandeur. He FORGOT who gave him his power in the first place!" The lights were growing stronger, and now Chrono could see the room around them. The ceiling was high, and from it heavy red fabric was draped to the walls. There seemed to be more than one floor, as the light was not candles in the room, but light shining up from the gaps between the floor and the walls, casting off a dull yellow glow.

Sensing her pain, "Maybe you should sit down for a minute…" Chrono said as he looked into her eyes and glanced around for a chair for her to sit on, but finding none.

Pandemonium smiled at his kindness, raising her hand and snapping her fingers; two chairs appeared next to them, causing Chrono to step to the side with surprise, before motioning for him to sit down with her. "How many times have you been reincarnated to suit his needs?" Pandemonium asked rhetorically.

"How many?" He trailed off, his brows pinched together at the bridge of his nose in confusion.

"You have been brought back twice, but in that time, he has damned you thrice, Emanuel… Chrono." She replied.

Chrono blinked, monetarily surprised before settling down again to look at her. "You do know who I am. But why did you keep calling me by that other name?"

"I shouldn't say the name Emanuel, I think… It was, after all, the Angelic name that Jehovah gave you. Or he was, before he placed me here. It was only you he stole from me. Your bother and sister still—No… Only Lillim is still within my reach. Lucifer discarded his horns, and now he serves Jehovah's twisted plots and even stole your horns away for a time to torture Hope."

Chrono's pupils dilated. _'Joshua… my horns—No!'_ Chrono snapped out of his thoughts to ask, "Pandemonium, tell me, is Aion—" His body began to shake. "Who is Lillim?"

"She is your oldest sibling. She was my dream to unite us all. Adam was to love her, and she was to be an angel." Pandemonium snarled, her hands balled into fists as she recalled the whole memory, "But Jehovah stripped her of her beauty and her wings! She was the turned into the mother of devils, not holy men. She lost her mind and now wanders in lust for her own brother."

Chrono's jaw went slack as images of a spider woman, who (now that he thought of it) looked much like the woman in front of him with raven hair. "Rizel…" he said softly.

"These are all indirect attacks on me. To make me suffer for being born. To make me suffer for loving him as much as I have. To punish me for being a devil. To punish me for being only what he made me to be." She said, her mind in a place far away from where they were now. "I will not let him have you again. This time, I will choose your fate." She murmured, "all of their fates."

"Who—" Chrono began to ask, only to blink in shock when faces flashed in front of his eyes. Faces of Joshua, Azmaria, the other Apostles, faces he knew, faces he did not, and Rosette.

"This time, I will see things done differently. After this, it will be over. He will never torment our children ever again. He will never again be allowed to cause pain to suit his own desire for worship and supremacy. After this, I will end his madness, once and for all!" she said, standing, turning her head to look up, a yellow glow flickering in her mouth.

Chrono jumped to his feet, tipping his chair over behind him. "What are you do--!" He did not get the chance to finish his sentence, for she had lowered her head and engulfed him in the blazing gold glow. _'Ahh… It burns! What are you doing to me? No, stop! Tell me what has happened to Rosette!'_ his mind yelled, his lips unresponsive to his demands for them to move.

"Change your repeating future! Do not allow him to take what he wants! Do not succumb to Lucifer's tyranny! Emanuel!"

'_Wait! Pandemonium! What am I supposed to do! Where is Rosette!'_ Alas, as he thought his last thought, he was scattered into tiny speckles of light and knew nothing more.

* * *

"So the child with Stigmata was a hoax?" Claire asked, her green eyes looking at Anna with pity, as they walked to Sister Kate's office.

"It was a real bummer. Seven years of trying to hunt the child down, only to find out that it was a child of another Crusader, who was cut at by it's mother." Anna replied, still horrified that a parent would do that to their child. She ran a hand through her tangled red hair.

"Really! That's some wild turkey chase." Mary asked, shocked, her blob of blonde hair bouncing as she moved.

"I believe you mean Wild Goose chase." Claire commented.

"It was so sad. She was locked in a glass room where people would come to pray to her. I'm glad that the orphanage would accept her. I hope she is happy there." Azmaria sighed, feeling guilty for the whole situation. This was her first mission as a Sister, a level 2 exorcist, and she had begged and pleaded Sister Kate to accompany Anna to Washington DC. She wanted to show Rosette and Chrono—who she prayed and sang to every night before bed—that she could be stronger and somehow repay them for their kindness.

"Me too, Azmaria. Maybe she will be able to forget the whole thing, now that we've christened her under a different name." Anna commented as she knocked on the door. As the new top level 3 exorcist, she was disappointed with herself about how poorly the mission had gone, despite not having any way to control the outcome. Their general consensus was that it was seven years of pain for nothing.

"God will only know. Maybe we will, too, in time. Mary and I will see you two later." Claire said with a wave, hearing Sister Kate call them from the other side of the door.

"Yeah! So good luck!" Mary added as she followed Claire, her official partner.

"Thank you very much!" Azmaria called back, bowing to them slightly before opening the door and leading Anna in behind her. Her pale lavender hair fanning slightly behind her.

Sister Kate's office was split into two portions, one an eating area, the other where her desk sat in front of the large window. The furniture wood was dark maple, and some of the wood on the walls were painted white. These mixed with the oak bookcases and walnut paneling on the far end by the doorway out; her office could safely be called mismatched. Despite that, or maybe because if it, it was always neat and clean, without even the slightest trace of disorganization.

"Do you have your report?" Sister Kate asked, pausing to look up from her writing.

Azmaria jumped, snapping into perfect stance, "Yes ma'am, we have!" she said quickly. Even after all these years, she was still easily intimidated by others.

Anna sighed, "The Crusaders are still a problem… One of them tried to make their own daughter into the holy woman. The child nearly bled to death from the wounds on her wrists."

"They still thrive… even after all these years… that is unfortunate. What did you do?" Kate asked, her eyes watching them worriedly.

"We locked her mother away and took her to the Orphanage here. We'll look after her to make sure she's okay, Ma'am!" Azmaria replied, her voice breaking slightly.

"Very good. I applaud your good work."

"Thank you ma'am!" Anna replied, glad to be praised, smiling with Azmaria before calming down again.

"Ma'am is there anything else we can do?" Azmaria asked, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes pleading.

Kate smiled, her lips and eyes making her look more tired than happy, "You have been away for a long time, Sisters. Take a weeks' leave to get settled back in."

"Yes Ma'am!" Anna said, bowing and heading out with Azmaria at her heels, who closed the door gently behind them.

Sister Kate set down her pen, pushing away from her desk to look out her window. "Something is coming. And now that Joshua has died, Remington has disappeared without a trace… or is he finally at peace? Sweet Lord, what have you in store for my girls?" She asked the heavens, her hands clasped in prayer.

* * *

"You will never be allowed to go through this again, Aion."

Aion snorted at the bound and caged angel at the far end of the room. Though his expression was amused by Ewen Remington's announcement, he was hardly surprised; even if he was stripped of his wings, it wasn't likely that he would learn to bark in a different tune. "but you forget, -sinner- Ewen, I already have. But don't let that stop god!" he said, laughing as he stood up, opening his arms wide, palms to the heavens, "Let him strike me down now if he wants to do so! He is God, he can do anything… But if that were true, wouldn't he have already done so? He certainly seems to care very little about his creations!"

Ewen scowled, his expression a deadly mix of contempt and denial. "Laugh now, Aion, but this is not finished. Why are you keeping me alive? It's obvious that I have no strategic advantage for you."

"You're so right!" Aion replied, smacking the side of his head before looking at him with a smirk. "That's a very good try, Ewen, but you will be delighted to know that I do have plans for you and your wings. But that will all come in good time…"

How had he been reduced to this pathetic state? When Joshua died peacefully in his sleep one night, his finished book clutched into his hands like a life-line, his guardian angel lost all direction. It was in Ewen's state of weakness that Aion had literally bumped into him on the streets of Rome. Without his wings, Ewen was no stronger than a starving child because, like a horns are to a devil, wings are to an angel. _'Ironically, you could call each of us, devils and angels, the perversion of the other.'_

"Well that is no good, Ewen, you shouldn't keep your thoughts locked inside. Who knows what could happen if you do. Why, you might just explode if you keep them all in." Aion said, condescendingly, as he sipped his drink.

"I have a question for you, Aion. Who is your Contractor? Without your horns, you will need one to sustain yourself.. What is your secret?" Ewen asked, raising an eyebrow.

Aion laughed, throwing his head back as his whole body shook with glee. "Well played, Ewen! Very well, I will tell you, I have none. So long as I have Pandemonium's head, I can draw from her power indefinitely, I do not need my horns, though I would greatly love it if you told me where they were hidden?"

'_Don't need your horns…Humph! So that's your game, is it, Aion? Well you will not get your answer with me.'_

"Come now, Ewen. Devils were once Angels too…"

"I don't recall what happened to them, I'm afraid that is one thing Chrono and Rosette took to the grave with them."

"Oh well, that cannot be helped…"

'_Aion, what are you planning…?'_

The year is 1936, the Spanish Civil War is in full-swing, German troops occupy Rhineland, Italy completes its conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), War between Japan and China begins. Thus begins World War II in a Godless world where all use his name as a means to justify cruel and hideous actions by lost and confused people.

On this stage, the 11 Disciples, 7 virtues, Emanuel, Magdalene, and the Virgin are fated to regather to counter-act the imbalance of Lucifer, Lillim, the 7 sins, the 11 unholy Ligion.

Which direction will their forces colliding cause fate to turn? The coming of Satan and Apocalypse? Or the release of Pandemonium and Rapture?

But where is God? What role does the ruler of all have in this battle for Earth? Is there still mercy left within his heart to save his people? Or will he turn his face away from us all, to allow us to choose our own hell? For, truly, there is no humanity left in the Human race.

Chapter one end.

* * *

Thank you, everyone, who has made it this far into this story. Obviously, this fanfic will have some religious spin to it, so pardon me if any of you find it offensive. I will try not to bring my own beliefs into this story, for the sake of keeping the spirit and setting of Chrono Crusade. I kindly ask that, for those who feel the need to voice their personal beliefs in their reviews, you do so respectively. I do not want to see you flaming me with threats of eternal burning in the seventh level of hell—in other words, save the judgment for God, so don't jump to conclusions. Don't tell me about the splinter in my eye and ignore the plank in your own, savvy?

Now, to answer the question before anyone asks it: "Will God play a larger part in this story?"

He may. It all depends on what I decide on how to describe him. ;

Peace and love, Xs and Os,

Prinder


	2. Chapter 2

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Discover the lost history behind the making of Earth, heaven, and hell. As the lines between good and evil become blurred, how will the children of the times be able to cope with what is about to come?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter two: Astral**

"…Rain, to wash away the sin." A man stated to himself, looking up as the sky darkened and thunder began to roll overhead. Turning his collar up and pressing his felt hat to his head to secure it, he trudged along New York's dirty streets, passing only few people on his walk, as it was actually quite late—even for the city that never sleeps.

"This soiled three-ring circus of vanity. Who embraces mortal hell, who endures waking shame? Foul speech from foul lips. Woman of sin and men of vice, your bitter taste is vulgar to my mouth. I spit you and bid you cleanse yourself of this filth." He spat, talking to no one, though everyone who had the misfortune of passing him heard.

The reactions to him varied; some chose to shy away from him silently because they thought he was slightly insane; some turned, once they had past him, and made vulgar gestures at his back when he wasn't looking; others, who had seen him before, chose to sidestep him completely and cross the street to avoid him. In the end, however, very few seemed to take pity on him—even rarer than the ones who nodded or exclaimed their agreement (in public, or in private, later).

Many people knew him, though, under this guise, they may not have realized it; you could not even make out the color of his skin in the trench coat that he had donned. Under this knee-length jacket and floppy-brimmed hat, many would have been surprised that the things he had said actually came out of his mouth. His skin was a warm, creamy-mocha, and youthful in it's smoothness. His eyes were hazel, though, if asked, he would say that they change depending on his mood. His voice was somber and made people drowsy when he spoke softly to them. He was well-dressed, gray slacks, white button shirt with a ribbon tie at his neck with black suspenders and brown vest with a pocket watch chain hanging out in plain view. His hair was salt and peppered black and gray, and he kept a bushy (but well groomed) beard. He wasn't tall, nor was he thin, but neither was he fat or short. He was a healthy shape, and slightly toned.

'_Which impression would be the most lasting? A withering old man who has succumbed to a fire in his brain and age? Or a portly gentleman who speaks calmly and behaves comely and evenhanded?'_ He pondered, stepping out of the rain and into a smoky barroom.

"We is closing soon, pops. You have time for a drink, but we can't keep you much longer than that." A man at the bar said as he wiped it down. The bar was empty, save for them.

"How gracious." He replied as he removed his coat and hat, setting them on a set of hooks by the door to dry before walking over to the bar, his stride slow and stiff. "Bourbon to warm me up will do, thank you, and then I will be on my way."

"Yeah. You got it, boss." The bartender said, filling a shot glass. "What brings you out in this weather and this late at night? You didn't come for drink, that's for certain." He joked as he passed the glass to the man.

"I've been away for a great long time, you could say." He replied, tipping the glass to his lips to take a drink.

'_I have loved you like no other…'_

'_Come with me.'_

"Hey, boss? You okay?" The bartender asked, waving a hand in front of the older man's face.

The man blinked, regaining his awareness. "Oh! I'm so sorry. You caught me remembering, it seems."

'_I can't stand them looking at you!'_

"What about? You were out of it, just staring at the mirror," The bartender motioned his thumb at the mirrored wall behind him, "for a good five minutes."

"That is a long story. You wouldn't want to listen to that! You're closing soon."

'_Is it man's fault for wanting perfection? Or is it the fault of perfection for being so perfect that man would want her? Or is it the fault of the thing that made them both with the qualities to have vanity and greed, and tells them it is their fault for having those feelings?'_

"Tell you what, sir. I'm not in any rush to get out into that rain either. If you can keep me entertained until it stops. I will not only let you stay here with me, but I'll buy that drink in your hand."

"Well then, I can't pass up an offer like that." The man chuckled, "It seems like just yesterday…"

* * *

_Who is God? An alien force, or a phenomenon that man named? Whatever God is, it is me. When I spoke with the man in the bar, the story I am going to write here, while it was similar, this is the one true truth._

_This story begins before time began. In the dust of an explosion, I was born; a Phoenix rising from the ashes; a shadow that walked on the milky way. Earth, as I found it, was naught but a vacant orb without atmosphere. I thought 'here will be my magnum opus.' But I, though I knew that I held the power to make life, I had not enough of it to make life on this planet._

_There, on this planet's surface, I sat and contemplated the solution, I would make a being who could make power. I gave the solution the name: Pandemonium. A moment chaotic disarray before a new order could be made._

_For her hair, I made silk strands, thin and lustrous; the same silk I would give to spiders, worms, caterpillars, and gypsy moths. In her eyes, I pulled down stars from the universe, and from my own blood, I gave them color. Her skin was smooth and soft and chilled; this I also used to make moonlight. Her voice was made into my waves and oceans. For her crown, I gave her blood drops and silver horns, sleek and ornate; she commanded power. This woman, as I would call her, would be my ideal perfection. Even as I made her, I fell in love with her. I clothed her in shadows and breathed life into her lungs with a kiss._

_With Pandemonium, I was able to take all the power I needed, which she collected from the sun, moon, and stars themselves with her horns; with her, I made this land full in six days. In celebration, I bid that she lay with me in Heaven and watch Man make it's first movements._

"_Lord, I am lonely; There are none who love me, none who are like me. There is no one to love but you and the land you have given me." _

_Adam. When I realized what I had forgotten, I wept, for I had love from Pandemonium; who knew nothing but loving me. Seeing my tears, she gave me her solution, which she named Lillim._

_Lillim, who's hair was made from blackbirds, and skin from snow, eyes of forget-me-nots and lips like rose petals. All she lacked was soul._

"_What have you done!" I demanded to know. How could my Pandemonium go behind my back and use her power for anything but me?_

"_Now your man will have love. She is perfect, Jehovah, is she not?" How could I stay angry at her heart? How could I become jealous of her power, of the perfect woman that I made?_

"_How could you do this! This wasn't what I wanted! Fine! She will join man, but she will be vain and be full of greed and evil. Man should never ask God of anything, for they will get just what they deserve!"_

"_No, Jehovah! You can't! Jehovah!"_

_Even when her daughter betrayed Adam, she still sided with her child. Eventually, my malice began to fade, and I began to love her again. My Pandemonium would worship and honor my laws from now on._

_Then Adam returned to me, and asked for love again. This time, and, to give him his wish, I took his rib—because to know love you must have pain—and made Eve._

_But Eve was imperfect, as imperfect as Adam._

"_Jehovah! Why have you made something so flawed when Lillim could have been perfection! Why? You made her into a beautiful monster and give him this shell of a thing in her place!" This time, it was her turn to be enraged, and in her anger, she willed Eve to be too giving, made her bleed every month, caused woman to suffer, made men suffer to know moods and feelings of irrationality. Then she made Knowledge._

"_Pandemonium! What is this! Man should never know the secrets of my power! I am omnipotent! You fool of a woman! How dare you undermine me!"_

"_How dare you use my child as a means to torture me! Return her goodness! Return it!"_

"_Never!" And I made the serpent and told Adam and Eve to never touch the fruit. But she was not done, she then gave them curiosity, freewill, and desire, lust, and they succumbed to temptation._

"_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" I screamed at them, banishing them from my Eden, my garden of delight, and then I turned to Pandemonium and seethed. Why did she continue to cross me! _

_By this time, she had given birth to another child, Lucifer. His hair was like her own, his eyes matching that of his sisters, and on his head were horns. Horns black horns, sleek like her own, but dark and foreboding._

"_What is this?" I had asked her when she had first shown him to me. She had only said that she gave him power to serve me, that he would serve his father as Lucifer Angel of Light, and his power would come from her. At first, I had been touched, but now I had clearly seen that she was going to use him to take my place if I allowed him to continue working under me._

"_They have a right to know your faults! They should know your taint as much as they know Lillim's! Your jealousy! Your Envy! Your Pride! Your Ego! You Vanity! You LUST for power! They have a right to know how malevolent their creator is—"_

"_SHUT UP!" _

_This was when I stripped her brethren, who she had made from my astral, taking power from me and from my humans. I ripped them from their holy titles, and threw them down. I cast her son into the furthest pits of Hell and I locked her into limbo. Then I turned on her children, I again attacked Lillim and implanted into her mind a burning desire for her brother, and allowed her to slowly grow mad._

_It was a long time before I could look at her again. Out of anger, and out of shame, I could not stand to face my Pandemonium; she was right about everything, but I was controlled by my pride—just as she had said—and would not admit, nor correct, or make amends, for my mistakes._

_Man continued to thrive with knowledge, and many times I sought to control the that plague she had unleashed from her astral Pandora's Box. As she sat, lamenting and crying bitter tears, time passed and I discovered the Virgin. She was beautiful, and was nearly as angelic as my archangels, but more delicate than an ice crystal. She was everything man would want. Watching her in her garden, I had an epiphany._

"_Give me this one thing, Pandemonium, and I swear that I will undo all of my injustices towards you." I had asked her, kneeling at her feet._

"_If I do this? If I let the human virgin carry our child…? Yes, Jehovah, for our children, for you, I will consent to that."_

_And thus Emanuel was given to Mary, and I started to undo my harms that I did to Pandemonium. But man had grown lustful, and when she walked among them, they desired her, wanted her, and I grew bitter. I accused her of using her powers to get their attention, accused her of loving them more than me. She denied it all, but I was beyond all reason. In the end, I forcefully removed the child from her womb and locked her away again, swearing that no other would have her but me. To make sure of this, I stole her head and hid it in Purgatory._

_To erase the feelings of obligation and guilt for Pandemonium, I told Gabriel, one of my archangels, to tell Mary and Joseph that he would be a boy, and he would be called Jesus._

_But Lucifer had laid a plot into motion, with the last of his mother's power, he willed for his brother's form to be visible to all of my worshippers. His acceptance would only be received by the faithless and blind; my ideal plan would never be realized through him now. Thus all order was thrown out of balance and a new way was created, one that served Jesus. He was supposed to wage a war and destroy those who opposed my laws, instead he gathered these forces under his wing—for these were the only ones who did not see his horns—and caused a revolution. He took his legions and rallied against my temples and priests, not with weapons, but with words. Still, this was a violation of my greatest law, and for that, I devised a punishment that would be fitting for his crimes._

_Eternal repercussions, ones to last a thousand of his lifetimes. I locked his holy men at the gates into Heaven, and I twisted the threads of time to punish Pandemonium and Lucifer for their hand in this. They would suffer for betraying me, and I would use Magdalene to do it. _

_Love God, fear God. He is a jealous God, and a benevolent God. He is Alpha and Omega. The one that makes and the one that destroys._

"_For I have loved you like no other, Pandemonium." I still recall those days of my own innocence, when all I needed was Pandemonium by my side._

"_Come with me…" And all that she cared for was me, and all she desired was my happiness._

_How can God lose his way on the path to the holiness that he created?_

_Not even I know._

_

* * *

_

"Now you see what a foolish man is, when you see him. Young man, if ever you love a woman, always forgive her for her infuriating ways, never raise a hand to her, and apologize as though, without her, you would never be able to breathe." The man said, placing his money onto the counter for his drink and moving to stand, grunting and groaning as his joints creaked and ached.

"What's that, boss? I told you I would pay for it. Keep your money." The Bartender said, motioning to the dollar coin on his counter as he put his broom away, he had been sweeping the floor while he listened to the old man. "But tell me, you still haven't explained why you're out here on a night like this."

"That's a story for another time. One that I will get into eventually, God willing." The old man replied, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

"I hear you. Okay then, your coat looks dry now, and the rain has died down some. I think it's time we got out on our own. You don't have to go home, boss, but you can't stay here, I'm afraid."

"You have already been more than kind, bless you." The old man replied as he made it up the three steps to the landing, taking his coat off of the hook along with his hat and donning them.

"Back at you, boss. Tell the Mrs. I said hello." The bartender said, opening the door, holding it for him before following, closing and locking it securely with a key.

Tipping his felt hat to the man, God smiled tiredly, "Thank you," He said. He continued down the street, as though he had never stopped at all.

"There's a good man for you." The bartender said, whistling as he pocketed his key and headed for his apartment two blocks away.

Too bad that he failed to notice how the aged man went back to walking hunched over, muttering curses under his breath, or how the rain seemed to steadily grow stronger as he continued to do so. He also failed to see the car that came around a blind corner and was unable to stop when he stepped out into the street.

"Sunday shall be kept for the Sabbath, and no work shall be done on this day… That is the order ordained by God almighty. Praise him, lambs, and he shall protect thy flock."

In the distance, ambulance sirens blared into the rainy night.

* * *

"How many more weeks until your baby is due, Samantha?" her best friend, Ellen, asked her as she fluffed the pillows in her chair before helping Samantha ease back onto them.

Samantha giggled, giddy with finally being able to hold her baby in her arms. "Any day now, Ellen. I'm so excited, and nervous! Louis is crawling up the walls trying to get the apartment ready in time." She replied as she perched her tea cup on her bloated abdomen; there were some perks to being 9 months pregnant, lazing about with Ellen with tea and cookies was one of them.

"Have you picked out names yet?" Ellen asked, sitting down herself, adding some molasses to her cup and waiting for it to dissolve. She had to admire her friend's motherly glow; even after the shock of being pregnant, being kicked out of her parent's house, moving in with her off-and-on employed fiancé. Despite her life being turned upside down and inside out, she seemed to be able to cope marvelously well.

"If it is a girl, it will be Yessica, and if it is a boy, it will be Yashua." Samantha replied, her dark green eyes shining as she swept her brown bangs way from her face, they were sticking in the late July heat, sitting on Ellen's balcony.

Ellen, who was a copper-redhead, raised an eyebrow. "Those are unusual."

"I know, but I wanted it to be a name that I could call out onto a busy street and they wouldn't question if it was for them!"

"Don't tell me that you are expecting a ruffian!" Ellen chided, "That's so unfair! You're too good for that! How will you cope?"

"Only the Holy Woman would know. I had a dream of her before I discovered I was pregnant, you know."

Ellen smiled shyly. Maybe the source of Samantha's strength was her unwavering faith in that Holy Woman. So many people said that she came from God, but she came and went, all without doing much of anything. Ellen was always a bit of a skeptic, but she still loved Samantha, even after her friend joined the Church of the Divine Holy Woman; everyone was so strange there, and they talked in tongues and did strange things with snakes; she was sure of it. If it wasn't for the fact that Louis was so fiercely protective of Samantha, Ellen would have been convinced that they really were a demonic cult. "What does your Minister say?"

"Oh, Pastor Franklin is so funny, he's always saying strange things about everything." Samantha said, brushing the subject aside. "How's Bob?"

"Uh, Bobby? Oh that man of mine!" Ellen exclaimed, "Did you know that he thought he could fix the whole in the roof on his own? He's never laid a shingle in his life! I told him, 'honey, be careful, knowing your luck with tools, you could very well just fall and impale yourself on a tack!'"

"That's just like a man! He didn't listen, did he? What happened?"

"Umhum! Just like a man. Of course, he gets up there, and the first thing he does is, he catches his foot on the last step, and knocks down the ladder!"

"Ohno!"

"That wasn't the half of it," Ellen continued, not hearing the distress in her friend's voice, nor did she see how Samantha groped her belly. "He nearly dropped it right onto me! I was so mad at him!"

"Ohno! Ellen—"

"I know! I told him so, and then I said that, until Charlie, he's our neighbor across the street, came home, he was going to sit up there and wait. I wasn't going to move that heavy ladder on my own, that's for sure." Ellen laughed.

"Ellen I think—"

"Oh don't worry. Bless Charlie, thank God he came home early that day or—"

"ELLEN!"

Ellen's eyes went wide with shock as she looked at her friend with alarm. "S-Samantha?"

"G-get Louis. It's time!" Samantha panted as Ellen stood up swiftly and raced out of the room, calling for Samantha's fiancé. _'I can't believe it's finally time…'_ Samantha thought as she remembered what the midwives told her; one breath in, two sharp ones out, repeat. Samantha moaned through another contraction while thinking, _'It's just started so soon. I can't wait to see your face, too, my baby.'_

"Samantha!" Louis called, running over to the open door that led out onto the porch, his forehead perspiring. "Ellen's starting her car. Let's go, Samantha. We—I can get your bag once you're at the hospital. Oh Why did we leave it at our place today?" He cried, a complete jumble of nerves.

"Only the Holy woman knows, Louis…" Samantha said breathlessly as he helped her out of the chair and down the stairs of the apartment complex.

"C'mon, c'mon, you stupid piece of—" Ellen cursed as she tried to get the engine to turn over. _'UGH! What a time for you to not start!'_ she thought, glancing up to see Louis and Samantha walking down the last few steps, renewing her efforts, she tried the key again, "please, please, please—" The engine sputtered to life, "YES! That's my girl!" Ellen cried, shifting into gear and sticking her head out her already rolled down window, "Hurry, while my car still likes me!"

"Thank you, Ellen." Louis said, sighing with relief as he helped Samantha into the back seat, closing the door carefully so that he didn't catch her summer dress between it and the frame. He paused only for a moment to gather his wits before running a dark-tanned hand through his black hair and running around the front of the car, rapping his knuckles on the hood for good luck, and climbing into the passenger seat in front. "Do you need directions?"

"That might not be a bad idea, Lou." Ellen said, falling back on her old Chicago accent, like she usually did when she was feeling stressed and worried. She adjusted the mirror to look at Samantha's reflection. "How are you holding up back there, sweetheart?" She asked the other woman.

"I'm Jake, Ellen, don't mind us, just do what you need to do."

Ellen smiled, "Don't worry, My driving is top-notch," she said, pulling out of her parking place and following Louis' directions to the hospital.

Twenty minutes later, Louis was rapping his fingers on the dashboard. "Top-notch, huh?"

"Look, smart-aleck, it -is- top-notch, it's EVERY OTHER DRIVER ON THIS HIGHWAY that stinks!" Ellen yelled and blared her horn at what may as well just been a parking lot. _'Just what are all of these people doing out at this time of day?'_ she thought as she adjusted her death-grip on the steering wheel only to be snapped out of her inner complaints by Samantha wailing in agony in the back seat.

Louis turned in his seat and reached for his Fiancée's hand. "Just a little longer, Samantha," he said reassuringly.

Samantha doubled over herself in a spasm, "I don't think it can last any longer, Louis! I can feel it coming!"

"You can't have the baby in my car!" Ellen squeaked, panicked.

"You try convincing it that!" Samantha screamed as she fought the urge to push.

Louis looked pale, his eyes staring down at the blood that was slowly seeping into the seats. "E-Ellen, stop the car and turn on the hazards…"

Ellen nearly swerved into the car next to them with shock as she turned her attention to him, "Do what!"

"ON THE ROAD! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!" Louis screamed, pointing ahead of them, just in time to get shoved into the windshield by the force of Ellen slamming on the brakes, barely stopping them from hitting the car in front of them. "Stop the car! Samantha can't make it there now! We have to deliver the baby here!"

"This is insane!" Ellen exclaimed over Samantha's screams of pain while she turned the hazards on and shifted to the side of the road, halfway into the ditch. "Okay, do it your way."

"Do you have a blanket, a towel or something in here we can use to wrap up the baby?" Louis asked, looking around frantically.

"The trunk! I keep one in the trunk!" Ellen replied, pushing her door open and diving outside, running for the back of her car to get it.

Louis bit his lip as he braced himself, getting out of the car as well, walking to the door to the back seats to get to Samantha easier. Opening the other side door, he instructed her to put her legs up on the backs of the seats, he instantly felt guilty when she looked at him, her eyes wide with fear. "It's going to be all right, Samantha, trust me," he said sadly, trying to comfort her.

"Here's the blanket." Ellen said, passing it to Louis and giving Samantha a brave smile. "Hang in there kiddo, there's not much further to go."

Louis nodded and turned back to Samantha, "Now, on your next contraction, I need you to push with everything you have." Seeing her nod and inhale to brace herself.

Ellen could only stand back in horror as Samantha slowly pushed and struggled the baby out. It was a boy, and he didn't even make a sound as he taken from the womb into the world, not even when he was cut from his umbilical cord with Louis' penknife, but that wasn't why she was so floored. Louis tried to keep his movements steady as soon as he first saw the child's head come out, even when he wrapped him up in the picnic blanket and cleared his throat as best as he could with his fingers, Louis managed to keep his expression even and unreadable.

Ten fingers.

And Ten perfect toes.

And two short spikes of bone protruding from the sides of his head.

'_Oh my dear sweet God, what is it?'_

Chapter two end

* * *

Well, there you have it. How did you like the portrayal of God? So, what is your verdict? Who is the worst, Pandemonium, or Jehovah? Who is the bad guy? My goal was to install anger and sympathy for both of them, because they didn't originally intend to become corrupt, but it's clear that we haven't seen the last of their past.

And what did you think of Samantha, Louis, and Ellen? How would you act in their shoes?

As always, I kindly ask you to read and review! What do I need to do to improve as a writer? Suggestions, comments, ideas, wondering just what sort of bag I'm in? Let me have it! I'm all for constructive criticism.

Ciao!

Prinder


	3. Chapter 3

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Just what kind of person is the child of Louis and Samantha? What is the reason for his mysterious birth? Who is Chrono, and who is Rosette, and can any tell from one face to the next?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter three: After-birth**

"14 years, it's hard to believe that you've been gone for fourteen years…" Azmaria said to the grave, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail behind her habit so that it would be out of her way. Normally, when people are seen at graves, it is because something bad had happened; but that wasn't true in Azmaria's case. "I was just promoted. I'm now a Novice, and Anna is going to join the Militia." She explained to Rosette's tombstone. _'It's so strange, they buried Rosette and Chrono in the same grave, but they only put Rosette's name on the tombstone.'_ Azmaria thought, placing roses on the grass in front of it before taking out a handkerchief to wipe the dust and grime that had slowly started to collect over it, her mind drifting again to Seventh Bell orphanage to the girl who was rumored to have Stigmata, the catalyst for her life as an exorcist now. _'Nelly said that Lucia doesn't remember anything of being an idol, or that's what she said the last time we visited them…Seven years ago.'_

A soft breeze swept across the Catholic cemetery, the sun's rays illuminating white headstones and gray grave markers; indiscriminate of the bodies held within, even the grave of Rosette and Chrono, which was under the shade of a blossoming oak, still seemed to be highlighted by the celestial orb.

"Azmaria! We have marching orders! Are you done yet?" Anna hollered from the car, waving the ear piece to the phone. Even though they were now considered seasoned veterans on the field, Anna still could not believe that Azmaria (now 26, and Anna just turning 30 herself) could still get lost in her own flights of fancy. "Azmaria!" Anna called, smiling as she thought _'I'm really lucky to have Azmaria, someone who will never change on the inside, no matter what happens.'_

Their bodies had grown and, although Anna could never say that she was under developed, she found that she had a twinge of regret that she was a Nun, and so did many men who saw the flamboyant redhead. Her emerald eyes twinkled with mischief as she watched Azmaria. Azmaria was the exact opposite of Anna, in many ways; while she was easily the most graceful to watch, when she was put to a task, she tripped and fumbled when she became distracted. It was always a debate between the Brothers in the Militia on which one was the most attractive—or that was what Mary had told her. Anna could see why they would, Azmaria was more angelic and had an air of ethereal beauty to her.

"Huh? I'm coming, Anna!" she called back, putting her handkerchief back into her belt pouch and running over to the car, climbing into the passenger side. "What did Sister Kate say?"

Ever since her first mission as an exorcist 14 years ago, after Rosette and Chrono had passed away, Azmaria had done everything she could to live by their example. From the day she helped take Lucia to Seventh Bell—a mission that took seven years to complete—, through the challenging trials of devil extermination, to coming to accept that her powers as an apostle would never return, no matter how much she prayed or sang. _'But, I'm not sad about that,'_ she thought, _'Not while I can still help people in other ways. I'll always be thankful.'_

"The Nevada branch requested our team, since we have experience with strange instances—her quote not mine—they wanted us to come down there and take a look at some photos."

Azmaria looked at Anna, puzzled. "Some photos? What kind?" she asked as Anna started the car.

"It's a little hard to explain, I'm not sure I understand it myself. They want us to look at the pictures, and then they want us to take over the investigation for them."

"So we'll find out when we get there…"

_Virginia City, Nevada, 24 hours later…_

The smokestack from the train issued clouds of black vapor as the train's whistle blew and the wheels turned and cranked, it leaving its passengers behind. Anna adjusted the straps to the large box-pack of weapons on her back as she waited for Azmaria to grab their other bags. It wasn't a terribly long trip, considering that Nevada was on the other side of the U.S. from New York, it passed rather quickly on the train; even with Azmaria jumping at every sound—which was often considering the form of transportation they took—as if a giant spider were to drop out of the baggage rack above them. If anything took too long, it was the actual packing and making sure that all of the preparations had been made. Anna smirked, _'Now I know why Sister Kate retired to a desk-job when she was still in her twenties. I'm getting too old for this.'_

Azmaria shivered, hugging her arms around herself to shake off the feeling.

"What's the matter with you?" Anna asked, raising an eyebrow to the younger woman in question.

"I guess I'm glad that the train ride is over. One time, I rode with Rosette, Chrono, and Satella on the train, and the experience was frightening." Azmaria replied, remembering the devil Rizel. Azmaria felt a hand on her shoulder and looked at it's owner.

Anna smiled sadly. "That was really a long time ago, Az," she said, thinking, _'But for you, it must only seem a few days ago.'_

"Hello there!" a young man, at least ten years Anna's junior, in an exorcist uniform, called from the window of his car, waving his hand at them, "Aren't you the ones from New York?"

Anna shared a smile with Azmaria, "Guess that must be us, huh?" She said before leading the way to his car. "Who might you be?"

"Uriel Leonard, Level 3 exorcist from the Virginia City Branch. I was sent to pick you up." The man replied, stepping out of his car (a two-door, black, 1932 Ford Rhode Island—Anna noted) and tipping his hat, his blonde hair underneath it a tangled mess. His brown eyes were welcoming, though looking tired, as he helped them load their things into the car. Azmaria sat in the back while Anna took the seat next to Leonard in the front.

"So do you know why we came all the way from Brooklyn, New York?" Anna asked casually as she watched the scenery change outside her window.

"There's a folder in the back that should explain some of it. I was working on the case myself, for a little bit. I'm glad that we have some pros here now to help out with it; it's a little intimidating." He replied, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them.

Curious, Azmaria dug amongst their things and found the large envelope, secured by a string to keep it's contents inside. Glancing at her partner, who nodded the go-ahead, she undid the tie and slipped the contents out into her dainty hands, paging through it as Leonard continued to talk.

"Exactly ten months ago, a man by the name of Louis Richardson ran his car off of the side of the road and met head-on with a tree. Tests show that he was not impaired in any way, it happened before noon, there was no struggle, no suicide note; in short, there was nothing to explain what happened to him." Leonard said, stopping at a sign before making a right turn.

"So, why was it handed over to the Magdalene Order's jurisdiction?" Anna asked, turning to regard his profile.

"Because, two weeks later, a neighbor of the late man's wife contacted us with pictures of a small 'gremlin' creature with wings entering and leaving the bomb shelter near where they lived. She said that she had started seeing it shortly after Ms. Samantha disappeared into the apartment."

"Gremlin…?" Azmaria said, blinking, taking the information in.

Leonard nodded slightly, "We went to investigate, and it turns out that they were right about the figure."

Azmaria looked down at the pictures in her hands, the shadowy figure in a blurry photo stood out from the others. Picking it up gingerly, she passed it to the front for Anna to see. "That one, am I right?" She asked.

"You've got some good instincts. I took that picture myself; I was surprised when it actually developed right, with how dark it was that night."

Anna inspected the picture, nodding before returning it to Azmaria. "What did you find out?"

"His wife, Samantha, moved out of the complex and in with her friends, Mr. And Mrs. Hatchet, no more than a week ago. But what was really strange was that she wasn't pregnant, and there was no child with her."

Anna raised an eyebrow and looked at Leonard, ask hence.

"Wasn't pregnant, Mr. Leonard?" Azmaria asked.

"According to her neighbors, she was at least 8 months, maybe more, along the last time they had seen her before she moved—which was about 11 months prior to the death of her husband. On that occasion, they had left to visit the Hatchets, but no one saw them come home until a few days later with a large basket full of blankets in their hands; there was no baby with them."

"Did something happen to their baby?" Azmaria questioned with a look of dread on her face, her eyes wide and her hands poised at her chin.

"It's likely. Maybe it was stillborn or something. Either way, Ms. Samantha came home notably less pregnant than when she left. As far as we have been able to trace witnesses, that was not only the last time they saw Samantha leave the house during the day, but when the strange noises and instances of things being stolen at night and early morning began to be reported."

"What kind of things?" Anna asked, her mind reeling full-tilt, into what, she wasn't sure, but the pit in her stomach suggested that it wasn't pleasant. _ 'So almost two years ago she left pregnant, a few days later, she comes home no longer pregnant and there is no sign of a child being born. She had not left the apartment after that, 11 months prior to her husbands death. Her husband dies in a one-way fight between his car and a tree; the tree won. 10 months after his death she moves out, prior to that disturbances are reported in the neighborhood and there is supposedly a Gremlin. Were they Satanists?' _ she thought, trying to make a connection

"Small things. Shoes, toys, bottles of milk on the doorsteps. Someone said that their laundry was nicked one evening." Leonard answered, pulling into the gate entrance of the Magdalene branch.

"How have things been since she moved?" Azmaria said, wondering aloud.

"Worse, if possible. What's really strange is that her friend, Ellen Hatchet, comes to the bomb shelter every now and then with a box; what she is using it for, we don't know yet, we haven't been able to question her."

"Have you searched the shelter?" Anna asked, stepping out of the car once it had stopped in front of the main entrance.

"We have, but you see, Sister…" Leonard trailed off, seeming to have misplaced their names in the midst of all of the other information on his mind.

"Oh no! We forgot to introduce ourselves!" Azmaria exclaimed, bowing apologetically, having realized that he was never told their names in the first place, "I'm Azmaria Hendric, and this is my partner Anna Valentine."

"As I said before," Leonard said, smiling gratefully, "I'm very glad to meet you. As I was saying, we have already searched there, but there's nothing inside that we could find." He nodded curtly to them before snapping to attention as the headmaster, a tired old woman in her late 70s, Sister Abigail walked over to them. "Sister Abby, may I present Sister Anna and Azmaria, from the New York branch."

Azmaria took the chance, during their introduction, to glance around the branch grounds. It wasn't nearly as big, or as old, as the New York branch location, but the dusty brick with white painted block buildings were pleasant enough for the solitary life they were expected to live. Even when she tipped her head back to the point where it touched her shoulders, she could not see the top of the steeple.

"Brother Uriel, thank you. You are excused to finish your reports." Abby said, her voice firm yet still remaining gentle, though her blue eyes demanded the respect of her rank.

"Yes, Sister Abby." He said, bowing again and politely excusing himself. Azmaria and Anna turned their attention to the older Sister.

"The other sisters will see that your things are taken to rooms. Do you have the file that I sent with Brother Uriel?" Abby asked, her tone soft, though her voice crackled with her age as they followed her up the stairs to her office.

"Yes, Sister Abby, I have it." Azmaria said, fumbling with it's contents, trying to return them to the envelope.

"Very good. I leave everything in your hands. How was your trip?"

"It was Jake, ma'am. No problems at all." Anna replied, pausing a few steps below the headmistress, who had stopped at the landing.

"Good, good. Then I won't make you waste your time with me, report to me once your work is finished, and if you need anything, let me know."

"YES MA'AM!" They answered none-too-gladly before turning and heading back down the steps to plan how they were going to approach the investigation.

* * *

"_Just what are you?"_

Ellen remembered asking herself that, her voice quivering as she looked down at the shining yellow eyes of the baby as it toddled along on all fours, the first time she had seen him. When Samantha told her what happened, she couldn't believe it; she had almost thought that Louis, kind, sturdy, loving Louis was going to live forever. Ellen, as a true friend, begged Samantha to leave the old apartment and move in with them for a time so that she could get back on her feet. The arrangements were made quickly; the next time Samantha called, only a week later, she let her know that she was ready to start moving. Ellen and Bob were over that afternoon to help her pack; it never even occurred to Ellen that there was something odd about the apartment. Only after seeing the child now did it occur to her that something did not seem inherently right about her friend's home.

Thinking back, she recalled that the sink wasn't full of bottles. There was no smell of diapers and powder. No baby rattles, no padded books, no mobiles and no signs that a child was even living with them. Even though the thing was born almost two years ago, now. Samantha was a disaster, personally, however; she looked like she had not slept in days, weeks even, her hair was hastily done up in curlers and she seemed to be permanently glued into her night gown, slippers, and robe. All of the makeup in the world, not that she had bothered to put any on in the first place—which was also unlike Samantha—could never have been enough to hide the red welts formed by saltwater tracks down her face. At first, Ellen bushed this off as the look of a woman grieving over the loss of the love of her life, or she did, until the night she heard Samantha's confession.

Ellen's memory still burned from the sight of Yashua, hurrying to the shelter the hour after Samantha had told her the truth. She recalled the instant she decided that she had to talk to Samantha and make her tell her what happened to the baby; if not for Samantha's sake, than for her own, so that she could relieve herself of her pitiable heart. The child that Samantha gave birth to on the side of the road. Bobby never saw the thing, in fact, he didn't even know about it, because Louis had begged her to not say a word to anyone about the child until they were ready themselves to face them. Samantha's admission did nothing to soothe her mind.

'_Ya-Yashua? We put it into the bomb shelter. Ellen, you mustn't go down there! We locked it inside more than a year ago, I haven't even been down there to feed it in at least that same amount of time!'_ Samantha's words echoed in Ellen's head, she could still hear her panicked voice as she begged her not to come down here. _'I haven't fed it, but I swear, that thing isn't human! I know, because it's still ALIVE!' _It was then that she knew that she had to see the truth for herself; and if it was even possible, the child looked even more monstrous than it did when it was born. Yellow eyes that pierced her, and the things on the side of it's head were bigger than before as well, white and shale-like, they were like rough horns. _'No,'_ she thought as she looked down at the child at the foot of the stairs, on that first night, _'They ARE horns.'_ Even his ears weren't normal, they were pointed, and twitched at the slightest sounds made. Before, as a newborn, he had no hair on his head, but now, even in the unlit pit that he sat in, she could tell that it wasn't black, or brown, or even red; it was a ghastly shade of purple.

"_Who are you?" _The small child had asked, standing up, his lips moving to sound out each word to perfection.

Ellen remembered how she froze at the top of the stairs, her breath stuck in her throat; unable to respond, and unable to scream.

"_Who are you?"_ he asked again.

Fear gripped her, triggering her flight-instinct, Ellen had screamed and ran, locking the door behind her, pressing her weight against it, half expecting it to chase after her. _"A monster."_

Now, while she was still terrified of the thing that only seemed to sit in an abandoned chair at the far end of the room and stare at her, she could not understand what caused her to be so frightened, _'monster or not, it's not terribly big, if I wanted to, I'm sure I could just kill it… and then, and then, Samantha might be able to recover from all of the misfortune it brought her…Oh God, forgive me! He's still just a child!'_ She thought. Still the child watched her, unmoving, though it's eyes, which seemed to burn into her with every movement she made—a very clear indication that, even now, it was still alive.

Why did she even bother to come back to this place? Maybe it was pity, or maybe it was malice. Every time she came, she took everything the creature had collected—she never stopped to ponder how it did that, because the door was always locked when she arrived—and removed it from the shelter. There were always milk bottles and soiled clothes, but after the first time she removed the toys; she had not seen any more since. In short, she came to clean the place where it lived, to make sure that it was still there, and to try to figure out what she was going to do with it—it was made perfectly clear that Samantha or Bobby would not be able to deal with it, so it was up to her to take care of the monster.

Feeling its eyes on her again, she turned and glared. "What do you want!" She demanded.

"Who are you?" That seemed to be the only thing it could say, though she never answered to find out.

She turned back to her work. "You filthy monster. Do you know how much pain you give people just by continuing to live! Why aren't you dead already?" She growled, using her anger for it to fuel her strength and finish her task quickly. She was using a broken shovel, _'another thing it stole, without a doubt,' _ to scoop trash into the box and tried to ignore it as it seemed resigned to sit and watch her toil.

Watching the woman as she came and took things away, both good things—the smell of urine and feces would eventually have become too intense for him if she did not—and bad—like taking away any source of food that he managed to collect, he could not decide what to think of her. She didn't seem to have a name, which he found to be sad, because (when she wasn't calling him a monster) she called him "Yashua," though he didn't know what that meant, it sounded nice, so he liked it, regardless of what it meant. Every now and then, he would catch her muttering to herself about the people she called his mother and father. _'mother… father…?' _ more foreign words to him.

When the woman wasn't there, he would sit and listen to people speak outside during the day, and at night he would go out and look for things he liked. He quickly found out that he liked the white substance in the containers people left at their doorsteps, and he drank as much of it as he could, when he found it. He also liked things that were smooth and were shiny under the light, or made small clinking noises or had interesting textures under his fingers—anything to stimulate his mind.

He didn't understand the word "monster," did it mean that he did not look like the woman, or any of the people who lived outside of his dark home? His horns gave him powers to make them stop moving (he had once used them when some people entered and tried to find him. He did not like how the things they held glowed and made his eyes hurt.) The first time he had used this power, it did not last very long, but thankfully it lasted long enough for him to fly outside and hide, his wings were not strong enough to carry him for long distances, though it gave him hope that he would be able to go out during the day soon, because he had learned how to make them disappear and reappear at will. His horns gave him powers to do things that others couldn't, he was sure of it; it was also why he had only known life in the dark room underground.

The room he lived in was large, three out of four of the walls were lined with shelves; they were all empty, but he supposed that they must have been there to keep things neat and tidy, but he never used them. If he tried to fly, he could reach the top one that towered even over the woman's head, but he never did because he was afraid that, if he did, he would simply fall from trying to carry extra weight. The stairs at the far end of the room from where he sat now, were made of metal and wood, they were very sturdy and did not squeak when the woman would walk up or down them. There were lights in the room, but they did not work well, and since they might draw unwanted attention, the woman had taken the bulbs from them the day she saw that he not only could fly, but could turn them on and off on his own. The walls were thick and lacked any character of their own (they were poured cement), the same with the floor, which was cold under his feet. Usually, when it was light out (for some reason, though he could not see any light when the door was closed, he could tell day from night in the room—something he didn't realize was a unique skill) he would sleep in a pile of blankets on the floor, or he would sit in the chair he was in now, and listen through the dirt and walls with his large ears to hear the people outside. The sound of their voices was calming to him, when he heard them not only did he learn how to speak, but he could almost picture them if he closed his eyes, it was euphoric, like daydreaming.

Ellen threw the shovel at the wall next to where he sat, startled, he tipped to the side and landed on his hands, before pushing off on them and landing in a crouch, his eyes wide.

"You can keep that thing here! Only a thing like you would want something like that piece of trash." She said, grabbing her box; it was now full, and walked up the stairs to the only doorway out.

"Who are you?" He asked again as she slammed and clicked the lock back into place. Alone in the dark room he allowed himself to slouch up against the thick stone wall, his glowing yellow eyes welling up with tears. _'Why do you hate me? Why don't you tell me who you are? Why aren't you my friend? Why can't I have my mother and father like all of those other small people outside? Why am I a monster? Why?'_

Outside, two nuns watched from a car they borrowed from Virginia City branch. Ellen left the bomb shelter with the box in her arms, walking to her car, which she had parked around the corner. Anna turned and whispered to Azmaria, "Do you want to follow her or should I?"

"If it's all right, Anna, I want to look into the shelter." she answered, keeping her eyes on the structure, seeming to hold her breath.

"Brother Uriel said that they already looked in there and didn't find anything, though… Listen, if you have a hunch, do it. Take the pack with you though." Anna said, nodding to her partner.

Azmaria smiled her gratitude. "Okay, thank you, Anna. Be careful yourself," she said, getting out of the passenger seat, heaving the large wooden pack onto her shoulders with great effort—she was never quite strong enough to carry it, which was why Anna usually did it instead of her.

"Will do!" Anna exclaimed, giving her a thumbs up and starting the car, driving off before she lost track of Mrs. Hatchets' taillights.

Azmaria steeled her nerves as she crossed the street, looking both ways as she did to make sure there were no cars coming, and walked up to the building that Ellen had just left. As she reached for the door, a feeling surged through her body and she froze in place. Her eyes wavered with thought. _'What is it?'_ She turned the latch, which she examined closely because it did not match with the door or the knob, _'This was added not long ago. Why would someone put a lock on the outside of a shelter, unless they wanted to keep something in?'_ and she slowly pulled the door open, looking down the stairs, the feeling increasing as she slowly walked down each step. _'What is this sensation? Did they put a—'_ She did not finish her thought.

"Who are you?" A small, weak, voice asked, making Azmaria jump and reach for her gun out of instinct before calming down.

Peering into the darkness, she could barely make out a form, no bigger than that of a toddler; she slowly relaxed her grip on her holy gun's handle. "Sister Azmaria Hendric, I'm from the Magdalene Order." She answered, waiting for the figure to make the next move.

"Are you my Sister?" it asked, shifting to stand up on it's chubby legs and bare feet.

Azmaria blinked, surprised, moving her hand away from her gun, her fear ebbing away. "I'm an exorcist of the order. They call us Sisters because we work for the church."

"Ooh… You're like those ones who came before; not like that other one, the ones with the things that glow." The form said, pointing its tiny, clawed, finger at her holster.

Not sure how to respond, Azmaria chose to be honest as she reached the bottom of the stairs, though the small figure tried to stay in the shadows where it could not be seen clearly. "They wanted to know who was down here." She said, refusing to use the word 'what' to avoid hurting the feelings of what sounded like a small boy. "What is your name?" She asked.

For a moment, Azmaria wondered if he wasn't going to answer. She was about to ask him again, when he gave her his answer. "Yashua, the monster."

Azmaria blinked, _'Monster?'_ she thought. "Can you come out where I can see you?"

Slowly, wobbling on his legs, he rocked from foot to foot, walking into the light that shone from the lamp outside, through the doorway at the top of the stairs. He stopped in his tracks with alarm, hearing her gasp, seeing her eyes wide and trembling. _'She's going to hate me too.' _He thought, his ears drooping, all hopes of having someone like him being dashed as he waited for her to scream.

"…Chrono." She whispered as she stepped closer, crouching onto her knees to his level, though, even then, she still towered over him. He backed away a little bit, but he did not make it far, because the next thing he knew, her arms were hugging him and she was crying onto the top of his head.

Yashua's pupils were dilated, and his eyelids were stretched open as far as they could go as he stared at the cross that was hanging from her dress' collar, the shape of it frightening him for reasons he didn't understand, but not enough to make her let him go. _'Why is she sobbing? Did I do something wrong?'_ he thought.

'_Chrono! He looks like Chrono! Everything about him looks like Chrono! Another devil like Chrono. Oh God, I know I shouldn't let him live, but he's still just a baby, and now that I know he looks like Chrono, I don't think I can do it!'_ She thought, pulling herself together slowly; picking the small child up into her arms seemed only right then. Even when she stood up, she couldn't let him go, so she carried him up the stairs with her, it wasn't until they were outside when his frightened voice reached her ears.

"No, no! You can't! She'll come back and see me gone! She'll be angry and scared! You can't take me out! They'll hate me! Please! Azmaria, please!"

"Huh!" She looked down at him, "You mean Mrs. Hatchet?"

The devil child calmed down slightly. "She didn't tell me her name…" He said quietly before regaining his resolve, "But you can't let me stay out here. They're all afraid of me! I'm a monster! I'm a monster!" he said, struggling.

"I don't care!" she snapped, stunning him into silence before she continued, "Not all monsters are created equal! I knew another one who was just like you! Because of that, I can't let you or anyone hide you or kill you just because you were born. It Isn't Your Fault that you are different." She looked him in the eye, surprised at how intelligent he was, but grateful for it, because it made making him understand so much easier. "No one has the right to kill someone for just existing—"

"I made my father die." He said, cutting her off, his voice pained, "Mrs. Hatchet said I did. I made him insane and then he killed himself. I lived instead of him! My mother doesn't want to acknowledge my existence because of what I am! They didn't want me because I'm a monster, she said so! I was supposed to die, but I can't! I can't die! Why did he die because I lived! Why does a monster get to live?"

"Yashua… How can you just accept the fate that others hand to you? Why do you want to give up so easily?" Azmaria asked, her eyes watery as she started to laugh, "If Rosette heard you, she would have had a fit…"

Yashua looked at her, his expression one of childlike puzzlement. _'Who is Rosette?'_

"God has his reasons for everything, but that doesn't mean that you should just let things happen. If you don't fight, you aren't living, and life doesn't have promises, so live, while you can, because when it is gone… it's only in the end that the dying ask themselves why they didn't challenge their destinies."

* * *

"Well if you want the thing so bad, you can have it! And good riddance! That monster has no right to try to control Samantha anymore." Ellen told the Sister firmly, standing next to the open trash bin in the back of one of the stores where she lived; she was emptying the box of it's contents there before returning home.

"So you say she gave birth to a devil?" Anna questioned, not quite believing it; usually when a baby devil was involved, it was summoned by a Satanist.

"Yes, that's what I said. I was there and saw it with my own eyes. I watched as its horned head came out of her and everything that followed. Right in my own car! You can see my cleaning bill and the police report to prove it!"

"Police report?" Anna asked.

"Yeah, apparently they get suspicious when someone calls the cleaners to have a large amount of blood removed from the back seat of their car." Ellen snorted, "At least they were able to hide that thing's horns when they came by to verify the story, or I could be in prison right now." Ellen added as she walked around the nun and walked back to her car. Only to turn and glare at her when she put her hand on the car door so that she could not open it. "I have to get back to Samantha and my Husband."

"You should be considering yourselves lucky that he -IS- a devil, because if he wasn't, I would have hauled you down to the police station a long time ago for child abuse. As it stands, the only thing that saves you is that, technically, he doesn't exist. Just remember that." Anna said sternly before stalking back over to the Magdalene car and climbing back into the driver's seat. "Also be glad that I went after you instead of my partner! Because she knows of at least one Devil that did brake the mold as far as their race goes, and she isn't beyond defending that memory!" she yelled before driving off.

'_Azmaria, you better know what you're doing. I know you're sympathetic to devils because of Chrono, but if that child does turn out to be evil, I pray that you can find it in yourself to stop him from doing something we will regret.'_

Chapter three end

* * *

For those who haven't realized it yet, you have to guess which people are which as this story progresses—But expect the unexpected, not everything is always what it seems.

The attempt was made to make time blend together in this chapter, but still keep it clearly defined, but if I failed, it's actually spelled out here:

1922—Rosette and Chrono die. Lucia, the girl with fake stigmata, is discovered. Azmaria is 11 years old.

1929—Joshua dies, Remington is captured by Aion, Azmaria and Anna come back from their seven-year mission to track down the girl with stigmata. Azmaria is 18 years old.

1936—Yashua is born on July 26th.

1937—June 3rd, Louis dies.

1938—March 17th, Samantha moves.

For those who may become confused in the next chapter, the years that are not in sync with the time-frame will be marked by date. Oh, but I recall something about 11 Legions, just where do they come in? And can will you be able to tell the difference between good and evil as the story goes on?

Until next time,

Oh, and Read and Review, folks, I want to know how I'm doing!

Prinder


	4. Chapter 4

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: The devil Yashua has been taken to New York where his destiny will be determined by the less-than enthusiastic Sister Kate. Time over-laps and it seems that, as the actors take the stage for the raising curtain, one question is the most prominent: Who is good, who is evil, and who can tell the difference?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter Four: Harvest**

March 30th, 1938

"Sister Azmaria, this is certainly unexpected of you." Sister Kate commented, her eyes on the small horned child in the lavender-haired woman's arms; its yellow eyes stared up at her, wide and clearly frightened. _'Good. It would do to know the fear of God young, especially if it is to stay here.'_ She thought, looking back at Azmaria's face, which was scrunched into a look of desperate need, as though, if she did not get this request fulfilled, she would break. Kate sighed, already knowing that she was defeated.

"I know, Ma'am, but please, if you can only see it in your heart to do this for me—"

Kate raised a hand, silencing her before speaking her own piece, "Relax, Sister Azmaria, my answer is yes—" Anna's screaming as she hugged Azmaria, rejoicing, cut Kate off.

"You did it! That's wonderful! I can't—" Anna said, laughing, heedless of the child that was pinned between the two women. Kate cleared her throat loudly, indicating she was not finished; the two women fell silent.

"However, he will not be permitted to enter the Church itself. We will prepare a room for him in the Elder's workshop. He will stay there and assist him." Sister Kate said calmly, resolutely nodding to herself, _'It is a good compromise.'_

She hadn't expected them to contact her about their mission so soon after being sent to Nevada to help the Virginia branch, and she certainly wasn't expecting them to request that she leave her office and meet them outside; in fact, if it were even possible, she expected even less to be looking down at a devil—a baby devil, of all things. Anna had quickly filled her in on everything that had transpired, from going to watch the bomb shelter, to meeting the devil and Ellen Hatchet, to taking the child back to the Virginia branch, to going to Ellen's home the next day and speaking to its mother.

"She said, 'please, just take him away, I am unfit to be his mother, not while Louis was alive, and not now.' Ma'am," Anna had said, "It will be put into a detailed report as soon as possible."

"We had her sign his custody over to the Magdalene order. Normally something like that would take some time, but, since there was no real record of his birth, except for a police report about the blood stains in her car—We already collected those from the police officer who handled that investigation—there is nothing that proves that he's alive except for the fact that I'm holding him in my hands," Azmaria further explained, "Since he isn't considered a real person to the real world, there wasn't need to bring the court into it. Signing him over was more for her sake."

"It may be for the best!" Edward Hamilton, the Church Elder, announced, walking over to them, his back slightly hunched, "I'm getting up there in age, and I could use an extra helping hand, and what better than a Devil? He would know by instinct alone what sorts of things that could combat other Devils." He peered at the child through his thick green spectacles, also taking time to admire Azmaria's firm breasts that the child so innocently was held against by Azmaria's arms. The action did not go unnoticed by Anna, who promptly called him on his lecherous ways and throttled him soundly for it. Only the child seemed alarmed by either action.

"His name is Yashua." Azmaria said, blinking when she saw Sister Kate's expression change to that of mild surprise. "Ma'am?" Anna stammered.

Sister Kate shook her head to clear her mind, brushing the similarities aside as pure coincidence; the mother of the devil was a follower of the Holy Woman, if the child's identity was truly a shock to her after its birth, of course there was always a chance she had named it before she saw its face. That was Kate's logical reasoning for his name. "You said he could speak on his own already." She stated, changing the subject.

Sensing the need to prove himself, Yashua looked up at the nun. "Who are you?" He asked as all of the other sisters and brothers murmured around them, astounded.

"This is our Headmistress, Sister Kate, Yashua." Anna said answering for her. Kate took that as a sign to continue, recovering from her shock, she met the devil eye-to-eye while the others watched.

"Do you understand what I am saying, Yashua? It is very important, because there are rules you will be expected to follow here."

"I will do my best, Sister Kate." He replied, the words coming out of his mouth with only slight difficulty.

"Good. Sister Azmaria, Sister Anna, you are dismissed to finish your written report on the case. Elder, if you will take the devil from Azmaria and follow me, I will explain to him the rules."

"Of course, Sister. Well," the Elder said, holding out his arms, "Come along boy, we have a lot to talk about."

"Ha-yes." Yashua said, allowing the Elder to take him into his arms. Reaching his tiny hand over the Elder's shoulder, he waved his clawed fingers to the two sisters who rescued him, smiling when they waved back happily. _'I have friends now,'_ he thought, his spirit seeming to grow calmer.

He had never realized just how scared he had been, surviving on his own in the bomb shelter, until he had been taking in by them. At first, he had been scared of Azmaria hugging him, but once she had told him about her friend, _'Another one, just like me,'_ he had released the tension within himself slowly. Anna provided another means to ease the inner chaos inside him; on the long train ride to New York (they had given him a hat to hide his horns under, which he now wore like a treasure) Anna sat on the floor for hours with him, teaching him to play games; something he had never done before until that day. That night on the train, Azmaria sung him to sleep. Comparing it to the shallow life he lived before they came for him, he would easily agree to anything the Headmistress ordered him, if it would mean that he could stay.

"You will be expected to help with all of the chores, listen to the orders of the other brothers and sisters. During morning Mass, you are to sit quietly in the workshop or outside. You will NOT be permitted to interrupt the service in any way, shape, or form. For meals, you are to go to the kitchen and fetch the plates for you and Elder. Do you understand so far?"

"Yes, I do, Sister Kate." He replied eagerly, holding onto each word she head.

Pausing for a moment to look at the devil in the Elder's arms, she continued, "You will not be permitted to use your powers here; if you cannot show control over them, we will place a cross barrier around your room, and you will not be allowed to leave it."

Yashua swallowed the lump in his throat, it tightening on him as she spoke. He nodded so that she knew he had been listening, redoubling his efforts to try to find a way to reign his powers in; he wasn't going to let that be the thing that would ruin the one happy thing that had happened since he was born.

"You are to help the Elder with all of his tasks and you are to do everything he says to the letter and you will follow any of the rules he has for you as well." She finished, stopping outside of the Elder's workshop.

"We'll get along swimmingly! Isn't that right, Yashua?" Edward asked the child, bouncing him in his arms lightly.

Yashua blinked, hanging onto the old man's white coat tightly with is small fingers, not sure what to think about his question until he looked up at the old man's eyes, able to see the reassuring wink behind the glasses before smiling, "Right!"

* * *

December 20th, 1937

"_Honey, aren't they beautiful? God's little gifts."_

The child stared from her place on the ground, the mud and rain seeping into her tiny flowered dress, her twin brother (wearing a blue shirt and overalls) kneeling in shock next to her.

"_Benjamin! Bethany! Go say hello to your daddy! Daddy's home!"_

The sirens that screamed around them as firemen tried to heave bodies from the flaming car. No one understood how the two children made it out of it alive, not even the kids themselves, who were too young to understand anything that was going on around them at the moment.

"_We're going to go up to visit grandma, won't you like that? I bet she can't wait to see you two! My little angels."_

Bethany and Benjamin, both only 1 and a half years old were the victims of fate. According the report from the New York Police, their father was driving the car in the midst of a downpour and lost control of the vehicle while making a turn; he hit and killed Richard Blythe, the owner of the bar at the corner they turned. Had he left at his usual time, he might have been able to save himself from sharing their parent's fates; why he was leaving so long past his usual closing time, only God knew. The search for their other living relatives would take some time, until then they would be at the mercy of the social services system.

"Those poor kids…."

* * *

February 13th, 1938

"Evan, could you take out the trash please? I've got my hands full!" Jane, a spunky woman with blonde hair and green eyes, called as she fumbled with diapers and her two-year-old twins, who were a spitting image of their father.

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, I'll get to it." Evan, her husband, answered, waving his hand, but not moving an inch from his place in front of the television. Jane fumed and quickly changed their diapers and returned them to they play-pen, intending to give him an earful for not helping out with Tristen and Trisha—who were growing more and more rambunctious every day.

Evan, a gangly 5' 11" tall man with sandy brown hair and blue eyes, never saw her coming. It seemed like they had always been fighting since the kids were born, and he didn't know what to do with her. "OW! DAMNYOU, JANE, WHAT THE HELL!"

The twins watched them through the bars of their playpen, their blue eyes reflecting the shifting light from the black and white television set.

* * *

October 3rd, 1937

Mrs. Gene sighed, looking out the window at the children in the swings, mentally ticking off their names as she saw them. _'Peter Simon, Andrew Lake, James and John Bishop, Philip Matthis, Luke Bartholomew, Thomas Didymus, Matthew Kingston, James Young, Judas Theoddaeus, Simon Farmer, Tabitha Dorcas, Pheobe Diakonos, Lucia Moore and 11 more war-orphans are on the way?'_ she thought with worry. She had been looking after the children in Seventh Bell Orphanage ever since she, herself, was an orphan. She still remembered all of the children before these ones, and though she loved them all equally, there was a special place for Rosette and Joshua Christopher; who, in a way, sacrificed themselves to give the others a new chance at living. _'God bless them.'_

For how broken their hearts must have been, the children of the second world war at Seventh Bell got along perfectly. Their ages varied; the youngest child, Thomas (called Tommy by the other kids), was turning two next week, and the oldest, Lucia, was 14—a young woman with a tragic story that started from the day she was born until she was nine years old, when the Sisters brought her to Mrs. Gene's door. In truth, some of them might not be completely orphaned, just misplaced by the system, and the adults in the world had not gotten around to finding their relatives (if there were any that were still alive). Not all of them were true WW II orphans, some of them simply were the result of everyday problems.

Parents were abusive. A single parent died of natural causes. Found on the side of the road with no name. Mafia child.

All of them forgotten.

'_What kind of world is it when our nation's future is forgotten?'_

_

* * *

_

April 7th, 1939

"Yashua, could you hand me that—" Elder began to ask, stopping to look at the time on the grandfather clock at the other end of the shop, before being cut off by the voice of Yashua, who was reading.

"It's right next to you. I got it for you already." He said, turning a page, bored. Idly, he skimmed the holy book for references to devils, but it gleaned little information.

"Oh, right you are. How did you know?" Edward asked, picking up the small box full of Holy Water shot, used to make Sacred bullets. He had a hunch on how Yashua knew; it was that the devil boy didn't actually. Glancing the clock he had only looked at a second ago, he noted that had jumped in time by two minutes. The Elder smirked, _'Why that little devil.'_

Yashua mumbled something incoherent, setting the Bible aside on the windowsill. Just by how the old man had responded, rather the lack of response, he knew the jig was up. Though the Elder had made it clear with Yashua, after Sister Kate had left them at the workshop for the first time, that he did not want Yashua to let his powers to diminish in strength (in fact, quite the opposite, the old man thought it would be beneficial to the Order if he used his demonic powers for good—or so he said, Yashua still didn't trust if that was actually what he meant), so during morning prayer, the Elder would usually set up a barrier area for Yashua to train himself in, so that they would not draw the undesired attention of Sister Kate. Despite that, the Elder did not seem to appreciate being used as a test dummy and Yashua learned very early that, when Edward Hamilton got quiet, trouble was soon to follow. "I didn't mean to do it; it just seemed normal to just make time stop for a minute so that I find them and you could get back to work." He confessed.

"My boy, out of all of your powers, freezing time is the most hazardous one for you to just be playing with. Why, I knew one devil who had his horns given to a child, who then mistakenly used their full power to turn all of his friends into statues. The devil had to get an other devil's horns with a counter power to undo the effect! What would happen if you used that power too strongly!" He demanded, hurling a fist full of Holy Water at the devil child.

Yashua panicked, having been attacked by the stuff before by the old man (on more than one occasion, and the result was never pleasant feeling) the next thing he knew the droplets of Holy Water had been turned into rock and fallen harmlessly to the floor. Yashua stared at them with shock as Edward scoffed, getting out of his chair.

"Can't change them back to normal, can you?" Edward asked, chuckling.

Yashua frowned; the old man was right. When ever he needed to make time stop, all he needed to do was just let his "spirit" stretch out around to cover the area around him, when he was done, all he had to do was draw that same feeling back in again and everything would return to normal; but this time was different. As though he had sent a concentrated blast of that power through his hand (which was still raised in front of him in a poor attempt to defend himself), and was absorbed by the water so completely that he could not pull them back from their hardened state.

"You should work more on controlling your astral consumption; if you can do that, you should be able to limit the shape that your form takes."

"I've been trying to do like you said, but it's too hard!" Yashua whimpered, "The minute I see progress it reverts back again. Maybe the devil you knew could do it, but what if I can't? Baby Devils being born from human parents isn't—"

"FIDDLESTICKS! Quit your sulking and shape up, boy! You shouldn't dismiss yourself on the count that you're different! And who is to say that neither one of them didn't have devil in their bloodline somewhere, or one of them could have signed a contract with another devil to have you and didn't realize the price they would pay. Whatever the case, you have to keep working at it. You're already years ahead of most human children mentally and physically, and I'm willing to bet that you have something that other devil's don't have that makes you this strong when you're still so young so—"

"Thank you, Elder." Yashua interrupted, walking over to the old man, "Someday I'll live up to your expectations."

"Well that's more like it! Now give me a hand with these things before the girls start to wonder why their stash of ammo hasn't been replenished yet."

"Yes, El— Ah!" Yashua stopped his sentence, turning his head to look at the door, hearing the dinner bell from the kitchen chiming. Turning back to Edward, he held out his hands, "Give me our clean plates; dinner is ready."

"Eh?" Edward shrugged, reaching for the plates on the table and passing them down to the small child, "I shouldn't be surprised that you could hear that. An old man like me, I can't hear much of anything these days, but now that you're here, I guess I won't have to worry about missing the dinner bell." He chuckled. "Don't drop anything."

"Ha-yes. I'll do my best." The devil child replied heading out the open door as quickly as he could manage with his short legs. He failed to see the Elder become misty-eyed.

'_It's so hard to not expect to see Rosette tagging along with him. Oh Lord, that boy looks like Chrono… he looks too much like him. I can only hope that that does not become an even greater burden on his sweet heart.'_

In the kitchen, Azmaria and Anna were busy helping Mary and Claire serve the others when Yashua walked up to the back door and knocked on it as loudly as he could with his hand.

"Heyhey! Don't crowd! Geez, you guys are being a bunch of animals today! PIPEDOWN!" Anna complained over the yelling of hungry men and women, her hair pulled up under her habit by a net cap to keep it out of the food.

"At least they will have the appetite to enjoy all of the food that Mary and Claire made." Azmaria panted as she wiped her brow; she was busy cleaning a particularly large pot that was used to make the rice and it was proving to be more difficult than she thought it would be to scour the more over-cooked parts, that were stuck at the bottom, free from the steel.

"Mary, can you get the door?" Claire asked, collecting dirty dishes.

"Sure! Just give me a minute!" Mary pleaded, trying to help Anna deplete the line of nuns and monks.

"I can get it!" Azmaria announced, about to set her scrub brush down.

"But if you do that, we're going to have an even bigger problem of all of these dishes trying to kill us!" Anna growled, growing frustrated by the inability to think over the commotion. "SHUT THE HECK UP ALREADY!" she screamed, making Mary jump, ladle in hand, and drop a scoop of rice onto the floor.

"Oh no!" Mary moaned, mourning the lost morsel.

"Hey! What's the hold up! We're hungry here!" another sister questioned near the back of the line, causing another flux of questions to go through the crowd.

"Do you think they're running out of food?"

"Oh that's great! I just got back from having to track down three devils who were unleashed by a bank robber! What else can go wrong today!"

"Ahh! Sorry, sorry, So very, very, sorry!" Mary apologized as she redoubled her efforts. "Maybe, Claire, if you took over for Anna, she could get the door!"

Claire sighed, barely glancing at Anna, who was busy issuing threats of pain onto the next person who pushed someone into the tray that held the potatoes (the cart was old and did not look like it could put up with much more abuse), "Oh Mary, we couldn't do that, not at the risk of her going ballistic on them, too."

"I heard that, Claire! Why don't you answer the door?" Anna fanged her rebuttal at the brown-haired nun.

"That's an excellent idea!" Azmaria chimed, wondering why she hadn't done so in the first place.

"Alright, I'm going right now…" Claire said, trailing off as she turned the knob and opened the door.

From the other side of the thresh hold, a pulsating gust of wind flooded into the kitchen and eating area. Suddenly, everything was quiet.

"Hi." Yashua said sheepishly, looking up at the kitchen staff, who were blinking at him with surprise.

Azmaria turned to look at the people in the waiting line; they were completely still, like statues made of flesh. She turned to look at Yashua.

"It won't last long. I made bubbles around you so that you could keep working and get them all served easier." The three-year-old explained, "Please don't tell Sister Kate, but it's the only way that I could help."

Anna smiled, slightly distressed, but still grateful. "Okay! Let's make use of it, I guess! Everyone grab a pan! Yashua, you help too!"

"Right away!" The other women replied, hurrying to assist her. Yashua smiled happily and followed suit.

Once the work was finished and everyone had been unfrozen, Yashua took the food for the Elder and him self and left, Anna sat down to recover from the day's activities. _'I didn't trust Chrono, either, when he was here.'_ She thought, sighing as she looked up at the ceiling, _'We really took him for granted, too. Yashua thinks he means well by using his powers to help us, but he's more of a devil than Chrono was; Yashua has his horns, and the only thing that controls him is himself! I want to say that I'm okay with him, but it really terrifies me that he has so much power.'_

"I'm glad we had Yashua, today. He was able to give us a chance to catch up." Azmaria said, sitting down next to her partner, her expression thoughtful, "Chrono would never have used his powers like that. But it's hard, it's really hard, to remember that he and Yashua aren't the same people. I'm worried that he might feel that he has to live up to Chrono's legacy, because we're always confusing them with each other."

"Az—"

"No, I think I'm going to take out the picture of the others and me at the festival in San Francisco." Azmaria said, her mind somewhere else.

Anna's thoughts drifted to the picture of Azmaria and her late friends. Anna, herself, did not give herself the chance to get to know Rosette and Chrono; and she never really had the chance to know Satella. She remembered only being able to help Joshua back to The Magdalene Order, but aside from that, she was a bystander to the whole thing. In a way, she felt selfish, because she seemed to only think of using Yashua to make amends to the dead for her neglect. "He'd probably be shocked to see how much he looks like his predecessor." She commented, offhandedly.

"I guess you're right, but that might be good for him! It might give him the courage to try harder to stay good, and not let the fact that he is a devil stop him from being that way."

"Azmaria, you're really beyond words." Anna remarked wryly.

Azmaria chuckled, "Thank you."

Chapter Four end.

* * *

Not exactly what we predicted, was it? Which set of twins is Rosette and Joshua? Who will remember who first? What is Aion up to? The pieces are falling together, and everything is falling apart.

Where are the disciples and apostles!

Stay tuned to find out!

Ja ne!

Prinder


	5. Chapter 5

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Anger is a powerful motivation, but the line between love and hate is less than a hair-width. What is the real motivation for Jehovah and Pandemonium? Meanwhile, what is Satan's true objective, and how does Lucifer and Jehovah come into his scheme?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter Five: Unholy Legion**

'_This will be where it begins, Jehovah. Soon the Royal 11, Unholy Legion, will assemble to Satan, and the Sins will rejoin their brother, Lucifer. Then the trumpets will sound, and your gates WILL OPEN, Jehovah, and you will not deny your children any longer. You will repent for your crimes, and then I will see the last of this suffering.'_ Pandemonium thought, watching through the satanic, black, pool; images bubbled up from the murky sludge-bottom, wavering before crashing down into nothingness again.

"Do you think that you will be able to stop me, Jehovah? Using your minimal twisting of my power to stop me… You are weak, Jehovah." She murmured, though her tone had become softer, almost pitying as she watched his disguised figure move from destination to destination, attempting to foil her plans. Behind her, a white silhouette pierced the darkness and wavered, illuminating the place where it stood, unable to overtake the shadows beyond.

"It is that weakness that made you once so fond of me, Pandemonium." God spoke, his voice gentle and echoing, as though cast out from a great distance.

Pandemonium glanced at the glowing light before turning to look away from it again. "Will you not face me with your true face, Jehovah?"

"Will you not face me with your own? Pandemonium, what is your desire?" He asked.

"You have no right to ask me what my desires are! You, who would twist my words and make them into things they are not." She said, crossing her arms over her chest, her long black nails resting on her upper arms. "You know what I want. I will not stop until I see that you pay for your crimes."

Suddenly, she flinched, digging her nails into her pale flesh; he felt so much nearer than he was a second ago.

His breath whispered past her ear as he spoke, "Why did we come to this, Pandemonium? You do not want to bring Apocalypse—"

Pandemonium shivered and growled, her red eyes flashing with defiance, holding her position. "You have my power, you could stop me with a wave of your hand if you desired, Jehovah. So why do you insist on using those pathetic tricks of will to forgo what I have set into motion?" She paused, flinching again, expecting him to react in his usual manner; she braced for his flaring temper.

"…Because I will beat you with my own power, Pandemonium. I will stop Lucifer and Satan and I will stop you, and I will use Emanuel to do it." Jehovah smiled, feeling the waves of anger flick up off of her skin like flame, as she turned her head to glare at him; her eyes glowing in a hellish shade of blood-red.

"You will not! I have made sure that he will not be a part of your plans again! You will not turn him and his brother against each other!" She screamed.

'_You're so easily manipulated, Pandemonium. Is this what it means to have too much emotion?'_ He mused. _'Sweet rapture, she who sways by the moon and is called like the tide by it, Pandemonium, essence of power.'  
_

_

* * *

_

"_I will not have you distracting me from my goal, Jehovah! I will have my revenge! LEAVE!"_

The old man slowly opened his eyes, the cacophony from rolling trunks on small caster wheels on the brick tile walkway in front of the train station mingled with chattering people and clicking taps of shoes as they walked. Adjusting his felt hat, he stood up slowly.

"Shekanyah." A hissing voice said on his right.

The old man froze in his place, turning to the direction the voice had come from.

"Adonai." The voice said, this time, coming from his left. The old man did not move, however.

"Come out Satan." Jehovah said, listening to Satan's laughing come up from behind him.

"You're no fun at all." Satan chimed, his legs crossed in front of him as he sat in the place that Jehovah had been a moment ago. "You weren't easy to find. Are you scared of me? Really, Jehovah, you made me after all, why are you so scared?"

"I have never been afraid of what you can do to me, Satan. Not to me personally." Jehovah said, though his eyes narrowed at the devil, a clear indicator of his displeasure to see him. _'Curse and be damned me for the day that I didn't consider the consequences of making Pandemonium; I should have realized that, when making perfection, you must also have an imperfection to balance it!'_ he thought, remembering the day he discovered Satan, who had birthed himself from the castoff shadows that Jehovah had made to bring life into Pandemonium.

"Well then, by all means, let me take us to a place where we can talk." Satan said, raising his fingers over his head.

"NO NOT—" Jehovah stopped short, blinking as he looked around, realizing that they had been moved to a coffee shop. Satan, who was sitting in the chair across from him, was laughing.

"Stupid old coot! They can't see me! And, as a matter of fact, right now, they can't see you either… For the moment at least."

Resigning himself to having the conversation with the King of Devils himself, Jehovah sat down and regarded the monster he had helped to bring into the world. Satan, taking a polar opposite to Jehovah in everything, chose to look young, with plump cheeks and a halo of blonde hair that was slightly gelled into spikes. His attire was sloppy with a black shirt with rolled up cuffs, red suspenders, and undone tie; all was done to portray the image of the perfect ruffian, and the look suited him. "What did you want, Satan? You already know my answer will be 'no,' so why bother?" Jehovah asked slowly, his temper cool and even.

"Jehovah, I have an appeal from my client." Satan said, placing his folded hands on the table between them, looking every bit like a shyster lawyer, haggling a plea bargain with the accuser.

"If, by that, you mean Lucifer, then my answer is an even more a resounding 'no' than it was if you were asking. I know what you are going to say, Satan, and I have no time for it."Jehovah responded, looking away from him, removing his felt hat to look at the inside to show his disinterest in what the other side had to say.

Seeing that he was about to be dismissed, Satan leaned back further in his chair and sniggered, sending out his baited line, "No fun, stupid, old, AND stubborn. How did Pandemonium put up with you?" Satan queried with a knowing smirk; he struck one of Jehovah's nerves, a sore one at that. _'Sucker.'_

Jehovah cast his gaze onto him again, able to see past the facade that hid the King of Devil's true form, stating slowly, "You have no right to ask me that—"

"Why? Because I 'made you do it?' HA! Just like your creations, you are -also- quick to point your faults and errors on me. You are no more perfect than your humans, Jehovah, which is why there is only one of you, and not two, like Pandemonium and me." Satan retorted cuttingly.

"PANDEMONIUM IS NOT YOURS!" Jehovah said, jumping to his feet in uncharacteristic swiftness, lunging over and grabbing Satan by the neck.

"But she is! She IS! You gave her to me. She's in my domain, isn't she? You PUT HER THERE! FOOL! She is my reflection. I am the part of her you ripped from her; she is MINE." Satan laughed, choking at the same time, while he was being strangled.

Jehovah glared at Satan's gleeful smile and let him go, sitting down once again, sighing. "What does Lucifer want, assuming that it is even something that I could give?" he asked, choosing to take a less offensive approach to the Overseer to Hell.

"He wants his rights as the Angel of Light to be restored." Satan replied, waving his hand dryly, as if to say he didn't understand it either.

"He wants his wings back, which grant him entrance into Heaven." Jehovah reiterated for him.

Satan rolled his eyes, "I know what he meant. But why? It's such a boring place. Only your followers go there. Borrrrinnnnggg!" he said, exasperated. "Well, you old dodger, what are you going to do about it?" he asked, raising a strangely delicate eyebrow in question.

Jehovah knew better than to be intrigued by the devil's behavior; he likely only wanted to know so that he could use both sides to his advantage. Snorting, because he wasn't about to let himself be fooled so easily, he countered with a question of his own, "I want to know, Satan, what's in it for you, if he is given his title again?"

"Umm… Good question. From there, he planed to defeat you and then bring the Apocalypse…" Satan drawled, as though reciting something he had heard several times before.

"But…?" God supplied, encouraging the King of Devils to speak further.

"But—you know me so well, Jehovah—I have something else in mind."

* * *

Seventh Bell Orphanage,

"Thank you again for all of this, Sister Azmaria. With so many children for us to look after now, we're grateful for all of the help that you sisters provide us." Mrs. Gene said, sterilizing another pot full of bottles for the younger children. They all varied in ages, but so many of the children still needed to be bottle fed, or at least given baby food; the result, no matter how the food was administered, or how much man power or money was thrown at the task, all of the people who worked at the orphanage were overworked, and Mrs. Gene found it a struggle to keep them from being malnourished. There just never seemed to be enough to go around these days.

"We're just as glad to be able to help, Mrs. Gene." Anna replied, Azmaria nodding in agreement next to her.

Mrs. Gene smiled; it was true that, without the help from the New York Magdalene branch sisters, it would be next to impossible for them to survive. Is things were now, the brothers in the militia saw that everything was in good repair, and there were always nuns being sent to take "vacations" there, to take time off from their usual duties, and to assist in looking after the astonishing 24 children residing at Seventh Bell Orphanage.

"You don't know what this means to us… God bless you."

Later, after the children had been put to bed, Azmaria sat up in the room set aside for her and Anna, brushing her hair. She glanced at her reflection and sighed, putting her brush down.

"What's wrong?" Anna asked, laying on her bed on her back, her feet propped up on the wall.

"Should I cut my hair?" Azmaria asked, "It's just that, it's a sign of vanity, and all of the other sisters have short hair—"

"No way…" Anna replied, laughing, "Az, if you did that, we'd be in big trouble, because then the rest of us wouldn't know what to do with ourselves! If keeping long hair makes you vain, then that's the only crime you have. If you cut that hair, what are the rest of us going to do? Mary would have to give up eating junk food! She'd never make it!"

Azmaria couldn't help but laugh with her. "Thank you, Anna."

"But really, what's wrong?" Anna asked again, rolling over to look at her more seriously, despite having her own flaming red hair pulled up into pigtails on either side of her head, making her look more like a large puppy tangled in the sheets than a person.

Azmaria looked past her out the window at the tree branches outside. "I can't explain it, I just feel… old?"

"AMEN! You feel old? I can't get over the fact that I'm older than Sister Kate was when she took over as—" Anna exclaimed, reminiscing. She was so young when she joined the church, she wasn't really thinking; as a nun, she was married to her work and to god, for the most part, and they all lived celibate lives. When she first hit puberty, she considered leaving the order, but, not knowing what she would do with herself if she did, she stayed. She loved kids and, for a time, when she was little, she wanted to have some of her own, but in her lifestyle, that just wasn't possible. All the same, she loved her work, being a tough cookie herself, she could never see her self as someone who would stay away from it forever. Kids or not.

"I don't mean like that, Anna." Azmaria said, waking her out of her thoughts, "It's like we've become weighed down and everything is moving faster, and we're moving slower…" She stopped, looking at her partner. Anna listened and nodded, urging her to continue. Azmaria sighed again, "My powers are coming back, Anna."

"What?" Anna blinked, "But you said that they were gone! When did they start?"

"A few days, a week, a month… I don't know, but it's a sign that something is coming, Anna." Azmaria said, balling her hands up into fists on her lap, closing her eyes tightly, "And I'm scared, because I don't want any more people close to me to die again. I want to fight it, I want to stop it, but I'm afraid of what happens if I can't!"

Anna got out of her bed and walked over to Azmaria, giving her a hug. "God… I'm sorry, Azmaria. But I'm promising you right now, no matter what, we're partners, and we're going to stick together, no matter what. Hell or high-water."

"Thank you, Anna… Thank you so much!"

* * *

"The other Archangels are going to be looking for you." Remington commented from his cage, watching as Satan paced the room. Satan, his eyes like molten silver, looked at him.

Satan wasn't what Ewen Rumington was expecting him to be; he had always been told that Lucifer and Satan were one and the same, but now it seemed to not be the case, because they often could be found trying to figure out each others motives and plans, and then forging counter measures to make sure that their own agenda is covered.

"Archangels have no power against me. I don't care about them." Satan said, waving his hand over his shoulder at Ewen to silence him. "They are only a threat to the 11 Legion."

Ewen looked at Satan carefully. In truth, Satan was surprisingly easy to get along with, and could be considered easy-going; which would make sense because, if he were difficult, not nearly as many people would follow him. Ewen shifted positions in his cage and rested his back against the bars, looking over his shoulder at the King of Devils, "who are the 11 Legion?" he asked.

"The 11 Legion are the perversion of the 11 Disciples. The same way the Apostles are a perversion of the Sins, and as I am a perversion to Pandemonium. They are the balance."

"So, the devils are the perversion of angels. Who is the perversion of God?" Ewen asked.

"No one! Adonai is his own perversion! Just how humans have no perversion except for themselves. Emanuel was supposed to bring the end, and Lucifer was supposed to be the light that lead the people out of darkness and into Rapture while Emanuel carried himself and all sin into Apocalypse; that was Adonai's original plan, at least. But when he realized the power that Pandemonium had given Lucifer, he stripped him of his rank and cast him out and decided to use Lucifer to bring the end."

"So he was planning Emanuel for a long time. He knew that his people would become corrupt and impure with knowledge, and he conceived a plan to bring them back to faith." Ewen said, thinking aloud.

"Not quite, because it wasn't until man saw Pandemonium's perfection that he decided to change the fate of Emanuel." Satan explained, sitting down in a wooden fold-up chair next to a tray table with a plate of fruit sitting on it.

Ewen looked away from him, contemplating the information that Satan had given him. "That doesn't make much sense, Satan." He commented.

Satan smirked, sampling one of the red grapes before answering, "I don't expect it to make sense, it was done by Adonai. But let me see if I can't fill in the gaps, starting from the day that Pandemonium and I were made…"

* * *

_Satan, as that is who I am, oddly enough, is not prone to falsehoods, as, when I speak, the truth is the most effective in motivating my audience. The story I will tell Ewen is, in fact, this same one here, and it all starts from the shadows of Pandemonium's grace._

_It was never God's intent to make me when he made the perfect Pandemonium. Had he realized that, by making her flawless, he would conceive me as well; I doubt he would have given her perfect power for him to abuse. We will make things clear from the start: There is no good, and there is no evil. Do not make the mistake of some of his followers and think that all is black and white._

_Faith is good. Man feels lost without faith in something, be it God or the stock market; he must have faith in something. Without faith, man dies slowly from the inside out and loses direction._

_Knowledge is good. Without knowledge, man would have died out long before; lacking in tools to sustain themselves, man is frail and feeble. It is only with knowledge that they have power; power that God considers evil, because it leads those to question his laws, and find faith in things other than him._

_God's intent to make Pandemonium dark and intimidating failed when he gave her a pure mind and soul with unlimited power. Even now, enshrouded in darkness, shadows will not touch her._

_From the beginning, Pandemonium made Lillim; the original task of Lillim was to give man the same power as God, this was something that he could not stand for, so when making the soul for Lillim, God corrupted it, and she was tainted. In her place, he made the flawed woman for man and ordained that they would be his progeny. Pandemonium, in revenge, gave man knowledge, to make sure that they would learn and continue to learn and forget their creator. _

_That was her plan to equalize the gap between God and man. It was here, that the war between her and God began. In the time when these things take place, I am only a casual observer on how my other part, Pandemonium, reacted to the illogical and emotional Adonai._

_This was when God discovered Mary, the most perfect virgin, and he became obsessed with her. He saw only Mary, and Pandemonium began to feel wrath and jealousy; to return his love to her, she devised a plot, one where he would love her, and he would fall out of power, and the end of his creation would be at hand—Mary and all._

_That plan started with the birth of Lucifer, who was going to be her final act of defiance to God, the one who would be the light in the shadow of God's taint. But Lucifer was tainted as well, because he was power hungry and defiant to God; when God saw Pandemonium's plans taking form, he acted swiftly, removing Lucifer from a position of power to one where he was nothing more than a Peon. A peon that I took up at once and cultivated to bring Pandemonium's vision into reality._

_Being nothing but a shadow to Pandemonium, I was both with her, and away from her. Like the darkness that surrounded my other half, I could not touch her purity either, though she, too, had become tainted by Jehovah's wrath. I watched over Lucifer from this place, this thin alternate dimension next to Limbo. You could say that I guided Lucifer's hand, in everything he did, and lent him my support; in exchange, the end result was supposed to be that Jehovah would be forced into a checkmate where he would have no choice but to respond to my demands._

_There was one time when I asked Lucifer what he thought of his little brother. I asked, "Do you feel sorry for the used child with only two fates for him? Either be born to die, never to live a life of his own… or be a crusader and go on a rampage, to destroy millions of innocent lives, only to lose his mind to bloodlust and again suffer to die. Do you feel that this is unfair?"_

"_Jehovah does not know the word 'fairness.'"_

_That was when I became equally interested in Emanuel as I was in Lucifer and Lillim. I had met him as Jesus once, and told him that, if he truly believed in God, he would jump from the cliff I had taken us to, and pray for his father on high to save him._

"_One does not test God." was his response; a clear refusal, it was marvelous. One should, of course, never challenge or test God's will, he is a mysterious worker, and when he acts, usually it will not be in your favor, and it will be done in such a round-about way that you cannot tell that it was HE who caused the trigger._

_In the end of Jesus' life, he both won and lost, because now the ones that followed him, now followed God, and the ones that followed God, were even more convinced of his omnipotence, and the ones that followed neither were slowly being converted by Jesus' own Disciples. It was beautiful. _

_But let's not forget dear Magdalene; Magdalene, his "most loved disciple," had a secret that she never told the others, the same one that told her to go to his tomb the day he was risen from that grave, the reason why she was being supported there by two Apostle sisters. On the day she had washed and bandaged his feet, the same act he had done for his other followers, he had given her the power to know his pains. If he only realized what that would mean later, and in future incarnations._

_For the rules of that contract was that she would feel and know all pain of his as intimately as if it were her own. In short, when he was beaten, she was beaten, when he carried the cross, her back was bowed by the burden, when his wrists were pierced by the iron nails, she was the one who screamed and bled. She was rendered barely able to walk when the spikes struck into his feet, and she sweat red blood when they placed the thorn crown on his head. She was taken to lay in bed when the spear was lodged into his side, and her wounds never closed, nor did the pain lessen. He would rise again, but at the cost of her life; which was God's intent from the start. When he had risen again, she had urged the two women at her side to take her there, because she had felt his breathing. Contracts are very interesting; I find it interesting, still, that God chose to allow something that -I- made to be used by his son. _

_As the King of Devils, I made their laws, gave them their tools to use their power; in short, I gave them the Contracts. Astounding that Adonai wanted Emanuel to use it on the woman._

_One lifetime should have been enough, but God was not finished. He then took Emanuel back from Pandemonium, retrieved Lillim and Lucifer from me, and devised a new plot. With all of his Disciples in heaven, guarding the gates, this made room for God to send out their leader and Mary Magdalene and have them wage a war against Pandemonium with Lucifer. This was how, for a short time, Lucifer stopped listening to even me, because this was when he removed his horns._

_As Aion, his plan was deceptive, he wanted the humans to live without doubt that, no matter what he did, they would still believe in God. Only that he would kill God and take his place using Magdalene and Chrono, but he knew, he knew, that Chrono would be hard to keep under his control, so when it became clear when he would no longer follow commands, Aion simply stole his horns and cast him off to die with Mary. He knew very well what Magdalene would do, and that, too, was a part of his brilliant plan._

_It was a game of time, and time is something that Aion had nearly complete and total control over. So long as Chrono remained powerless, he would never be a problem. The task was to wait for Magdalene to be reborn with the seven Apostles, which Aion could then use to release Pandemonium, destroy the gates of heaven and God himself._

_We must not allow ourselves to be fooled by God's illusions. God had a plan of his own, after all, and Aion would play right into it; God would use Aion to return the people back to faith and, when the time would be right, he would again use Emanuel, only this time, besides killing Magdalene and himself, he would remove Aion, Lucifer, from power._

_I must applaud Adonai, he is a master of forming perfect plans; he threw enough of a fuss, sending the Holy Virgin Mary to protect both Magdalene and the Apostle Azmaria, using the Stigmata as a sign of warning to make Aion think twice… Lucifer never suspected that he was playing in God's favor all along. It was beautiful._

_Which is why you are a sinner, Ewen; you realized God's plan much too late, and, had you been a good archangel, you would have -helped- Aion, instead of getting in his path, but then again, as an angel, you serve humanity as well as God, so who do you protect? The plan was in God's interests, not in the interests of man. Now, as you sit and slowly waste away, Aion has your wings, and what would he do with such things?  
_

_

* * *

_

"Why, Ewen, he's going to use them to walk through the gates of heaven and destroy them from within. But first, be must reassemble the Seven Sins and the 11 Legion. He must make his unholy army before my part in this can be played." Satan finished, chuckling pleasantly, as though he was being tickled by invisible hands.

Ewen discarded the Devil's glee and turned to face him, his hands gripping the bars of the cage. "What is your part then, Satan?"

"Well—"

Satan was interrupted by Aion, who walked in through the door casually, his eyes glaring at the King of Devils, though his voice tried to indicate that he did not actually mind. "Now we can't have that! That gives the ending away, we wouldn't want to spoil the show for our audience." He said.

"Lucifer, Lucifer, he will guess eventually. Have you found them yet?"

"I found them. Every last one of them was easy to spot, so the matter is now getting them to remember their mission." Aion said, strolling over to the cage, leaning down to look at Ewen in the eyes. "The proper trigger is needed, or they could simply regain their power, but their memories will be lost." Ewen didn't flinch. Aion sighed, giving up, he pulled away from the cage and looked at Satan, "Did you have fun?" He asked.

"So you found the Seven, that's good. The Apostles, then? Yes, we had a good time…" Satan chattered, drinking grape juice from a wine glass to keep himself occupied, "I even planted a seed for you."

"So the garden is in order. Wonderful."

Chapter Five End

* * *

If that wasn't confusing to the rest of you, I am amazed, because it took me forever to get all of it to not make my brain hurt.

I hope that all of you noticed the double meaning to Aion and Satan's conversation. Sit tight, it all makes sense the further and deeper we go…

I hope. ;;

Oh, for grits and shiggles, if at all possible, I would like everyone who has read this fic up to this point to leave a small review so that I can get a head count to see how many of you actually seem to like it/think it is worth reading. I'd hate to think that I'm the only one getting enjoyment out of this, you know? Anyway, just put in a small review, wave, say hello, whatever, and I'll just call it good. No muss, no fuss.

In peace, not pieces,

Prinder


	6. Chapter 6

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Yashua's powers increase by leaps and bounds. What is the significance of Azmaria's treasured picture to the young devil? As the lights dim and the curtain rises, can Yashua cope with the "noise" from the orchestra?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter Six: Sepia**

"Yashua! Yashua, We're home!" Anna called, peeking into the Elder's workshop. They had been away at Seventh Bell Orphanage for four weeks and, in that time, Anna had decided to redouble her efforts to get to know the little devil more, if only so that Azmaria would stop worrying that she would be afraid of Yashua if she wasn't there. "Azmaria's getting something from her room to show—" she stopped and growled, pulling her head back out of the door and looking over her shoulder, and then looking down at the old man admiring her white panties.

"Oh, it's good to see you again, Anna. You're all fresh from your vacation!" Edward Hamilton cackled, enjoying the view.

"YOU UNHOLY LETCHER!" came Anna's war-cry as she throttled him within an inch of his life; something he seemed to get sick and twisted pleasure out of, _'Hell, if he didn't why in God's good name, would he KEEP DOING THIS!'_

Yashua, who was in the upstairs portion of the shop (which they had turned into a bedroom for him when he had first arrived at the Magdalene Order's New York branch), pulled the window open and leaned his head out to look down at them. "Ah ha—Hi, Sister Anna," He said, his eyes wide and innocent, though he was used to the Elder being beaten up by the many of the nuns here. _'I would be more worried if they didn't.'_ he thought with a small smile.

"HUMPH! That'll teach you…" Anna announced to the old man. Looking up, she gave her best smile as she greeted Yashua in return, "Didn't you hear me calling for you?"

"I was trying to retract my horns." He said, his tone disappointed; he felt that he was very close to getting it right, but he still had not made any progress. Cheering himself up slightly, remembering Anna's announcement, he added, "Sister Azmaria has something to show me?"

Anna put her hands on her hips, laughing, she exclaimed, "You aren't going to make me shout it up to you, are you? Get down here! And hurry up, she'll be here any minute!"

Yashua seemed to pause, thinking before glancing around to see if anyone besides Edward and Anna were watching. Looking down at her again, he asked, "A hurry?" Seeing her nod briskly, he swallowed and looked around again. "Step away from the door a little bit!"

Edward, who had long since hauled himself back up from the puddle of mush that Anna had left him as, did as Yashua asked, cackling with amusement, grabbing Anna's forearm and pulling her with him. "Any time, my boy!" He called.

Anna leaned over and whispered to the old pervert, trying to understand the need for them to move away, "What's he—"

Yashua grunted as he climbed through the small porthole that was the window and jumped out, falling quickly to the ground below.

Anna leaned backwards, her eyes wide with shock, anticipating a harsh end for the devil child. Instantly, she tried to rush forward, hoping to catch him in time, but the Elder's grip held firm, stopping her in her tracks. "He's gonna—"

"No, dear girl, WATCH HIM!" Edward interjected, pointing up with his free hand as Yashua's wings flickered, their shapes unfolding from his back though they had not been there a moment before, seeming transparent for a moment before solidifying and flapping down, catching the air under them to slow his decent. Anna was silent, she reckoned that her eyes must have been the size of dinner plates, as he landed in front of them, his wings evaporating away, as though they had only been a mirage, a trick played on their eyes by a sweltering heat that was not there.

Yashua paused in a kneeling crouch before lifting his head and standing up, his face shining with a thin layer of sweat. Anna could not tell if he was pleased because he had flown down to them, because he had been able to make his wings appear and disappear at will, or because he had managed to stun her so completely that her mouth was stuck open. She did not close it until the Elder had let go of her arm and walked over to the small devil boy to pat his back and tell him, "Well done! Well done! Don't you agree, Sister? He's slowly been mastering his powers day by day. Sister Kate as even offered to 'kill two birds with one stone' and let him train his powers in the exorcist training room, as well as train the other exorcists."

"She said WHAT!" Anna gasped, putting a hand to the side of her head. _'She's going to try to kill him! They use live rounds in training for level two exorcists! And level ones have the crucifixion and principality barriers, not to mention the holy water!'_

"Just as soon as I finish developing a stunning shot that will still be powerful enough for him to not want to be hit, but not strong enough to cause lasting damage." Edward finished with a cheeky grin; he had been waiting for that kind of reaction.

"Elder! You better not be testing the prototypes on him!" Azmaria scolded warningly, a framed picture in her arms, as she walked across the field to his workshop, having overheard him.

"Well why not? It's a good chance to see what the resistance of a devil's body is without going overkill; it's for a worthy cause!" He snapped, thinking, _'Kids these days, no respect!'_

"Because, you perverted old man, sometimes your lulu inventions don't always work the way you want them! Or do I have to remind you, again, about the Spirit!" Anna challenged, eyeing him with deadly intent; a lingering threat that she would carry out with her warning.

Yashua, meanwhile, was looking between all three of them and the picture in Azmaria's hand. Realizing that he would not get to see it until the dispute was settled, he raised his voice slightly to be heard over the bickering adults, "Hey, hey! It's Jake!" he said, grabbing Anna by the arm and pulling her back a bit from the Elder, "It's Jake! I want to help! It's good for me to learn how to fight too! If I don't, I'll be even more dangerous!"

"You don't understand, Yashua; if you're used for training other exorcists, they could kill you by accident. They are not supposed to show mercy to devils, part of the reason why Sister Kate keeps you isolated here is so that the others won't grow a soft spot for devils; weakness on the field means death to us, Yashua, but mercilessness means death to you in THERE." Anna explained, punctuating her words with a penetrating stare from her Mediterranean blue eyes.

"I don't care. I have to help somehow. I want to help somehow, to repay for the kindness everyone has given me. I have to do SOMETHING." Yashua replied softly, though his eyes wavered, sensing the immense feelings of regret and sadness from the redhead.

Azmaria smiled, _'I remember being like that when Rosette and Chrono helped me.'_ she thought, walking over to where he and her partner stood, kneeling down and turning the picture frame around, so that he could see what it held behind it's glass. "I think I understand how you feel, Yashua. You see, I was a lot like you, when I was little; everyone was always helping me, but I only seemed to cause pain everywhere I went." She paused, hearing a soft gasp escape his lips, "Then I met them, and I felt, for the first time in my life, I could do something more than just be protected."

"_I want to fight, too!"_

Azmaria's smile was tired and worn; seeming to show how much time had actually passed since those lonely days of her youth. "I could fight, and I could protect, I could be just like them, and never give up another day of my life…"

Yashua felt an unnatural wind blow up behind him, fanning his hair around his face as his red eyes stared back at the brown, sepia, colored picture in Azmaria's hands. He inhaled sharply, blinking and reeling back from her, a pulsing sensation surging through his body. _'That… but he—but, that guy is… he looks—I look…'_ his mind fumbled, unable to connect his strings of thought together as he focused on the short boy with spiky hair in the photograph; it was as though he were looking at his own reflection, frozen in time. Calming himself down again, he looked at the others in the picture.

A small girl with long, light colored hair with a dress that matched that stopped at her knees. Glancing up at the woman who held the still-frame, though she was dressed in her habit, he could still tell that was Azmaria, surrounded by her friends.

Looking back down, he saw an older woman, her hair was dark, but it's true color was lost on the image left behind, her hair was long as well; it seemed to go on forever behind her, or as far as the picture would show. She was also tall; taller than the other three in the photograph, she had hunched herself over for the photo to be taken, and still she towered over them. Her dress was form fitting, leaving little to imagination, though his innocent mind only wondered how she could breathe or move in something like that; he also noticed an odd, finger less, glove on one of her hands with an empty socket on the top of it. _'Was there something that was supposed to go there?'_ he thought curiously.

Brushing the question aside, he looked at the last figure. She stood in the back, barely a head taller than Azmaria and the boy next to her, who looked so much like himself it was uncanny. Her hair was light, but still darker than Azmaira's, yet lighter than the taller woman who had bent herself over to fit into the picture. She was dressed in the female militia habit; a high white collar with a thin chain around her neck, attached to a large object with a circular window front on it. _'A bottle for holy water? Or a kind of cross?'_ he thought, blinking again, feeling another pulse.

"_Now if you could leave that pocket watch…" _

"Yashua?" Anna's voice called him back from the place in his mind, her hand gripping his shoulder tightly as she shook him. He turned his head and looked at her.

"You scared us for a minute, my boy." The Elder said, his expression easing away from it's worried frown to one of relief.

"I—Huh?" Yashua blinked again, focusing on the old man's face this time.

"You just sort of dazed out of it for a minute, Yashua. Are you alright?" Anna asked, shaking her head, trying to brush away her feelings of unrest. She was trying not to be a mother-hen, but she couldn't help but be at least a little concerned for the boy devil, especially when he seemed so disturbed. _'A face like that doesn't belong on a little kid, devil or not; no child should look like they've gotten lost… not like that, and not from just a picture.'_ She thought, her hand relaxing on his upper arm slightly as Azmaria spoke up.

"Are you Jake, Yashua? I knew that it would be surprising, after all," Azmaria smiled and laugh lightly, her voice tinkling like a small bell, "You did the same to me, when I first saw you." She said, before adding, with a strange sense of urgently, "But if I knew you would have reacted like that, I would never have! I'm so sorry, Yashu—"

"Sister Azmaria, who are the ones in the photograph?" Yashua asked, silencing her, continuing to look at the small figures inside their frame.

Smiling with genuine relief, Azmaria pointed to each one in turn as she replied, "Well this one, the shortest, was me, and the one holding my shoulders, was Satella Harvenheit, the Hexen Der Juwel—Jewel Witch—and the one in the back was Rosette Christopher, and the last one was Chrono, a very good friend and devil, just like you…"

* * *

Mrs. Gene sat down in her brown wicker rocking chair on the front porch of Seventh Bell, glass of lemonade balanced in her hand as she made herself comfortable, her eyes drifting to the sullen expression on 14 year old Lucia, who sat on the steps, seeming to be retreating from the noon-time sun.

Inspecting the child, she smiled almost pityingly; Lucia wore a headband over her forehead, long sleeves with long cuffs, and knee socks to hide the scars that her mother had left her. Though Lucia's hair fell over her like a black shroud, obscuring her face, Mrs. Gene still knew that her green eyes were crying silently as the other children defiantly challenged the heat. Lucia, feeling eyes on her, turned to look at Mrs. Gene.

"Why are you crying, Lucia?" Mrs. Gene asked, offering her a drink from her lemonade. Moving from the steps, Lucia shifted over to her, accepting the glass, taking two swallows before passing it back, wiping her eyes and cheeks with the back of her sleeve.

"I'm scared, Mrs. Gene. What happens when I turn fifteen, and I have to leave?"

Mrs. Gene shook her head slowly, it was something she heard all too often from her charges, and time did little to help her in giving them solutions. Slowly, she recalled the people who always helped them in the past as she gave her answer, "I'm sure many people in town would love to have you come work for them, your demeanor has always been so respectful and courteous, you might do well helping other people. I could always use more help with raising the others, but I can tell that isn't what you want from life. The Sisters from the Madgalene Order always need people who are willing to fight, but I wonder if that would be too traumatic with your past… Lucia, you're still young, the thing you must keep in mind is that the whole world is open to you, you just have to be willing to go out there and face it."

Nodding her head once, she turned to look back at the other children. Each one was different, in their own way, but they were still very much the same to Lucia.

Peter, 6 years old, was a bit of a busybody, always telling the others what his opinion was, whether they wanted it or not. Despite this, he was the undisputed leader in most of the group games. His Sunday best always dirty from never bothering to change into play clothes, though that never seemed to match the rest of him, because he always kept his dark brown hair well combed and his hands and face washed and clean.

Andrew, also 6, was somewhat shy. He loved to run and play with the others, but he usually had a hard time speaking up when he wanted to do something else (especially when it contradicted Peter, who was his best friend). Somehow, instead of wearing holes in the knees of his pants, which would have been more typical of kids his age, his trademark seemed to be finding new ways to rip holes in the back, next to the pockets; which meant that he made it possible for Lucia to become creative in her patching skills, not that she minded, and, if she did, she always forgot to be angry with him when he smiled his gapped smile (he was losing his baby teeth constantly) and looked at her with his large chocolate brown eyes, making it next to impossible for her to stay mad at him.

James and John Bishop, 8 and 5 years old (respectively), were both troublemakers and liked to play pranks on the others. It was hard to tell which one thought of the tricks first, because they both seemed to have an equal hand in everything they did. John stuck with his older brother like glue, and James didn't seem to have a problem with exercising his authority as the big brother; John was completely awestruck by him. They didn't actually look that much alike, which was fortunate for Lucia and the others, because it made it easier to spot when they were fleeing the scene. James, with blonde hair and one blue eye and one green, and John, who was a brunette with laughing blue eyes.

Philip, who turned 9 on April 9th, was dark skinned, had a blob of curly black hair on top of his head and dark brown eyes with a shockingly bright-white smile that seemed to lift everyone's spirits when he shared it. Mostly, he tended to tramp about in overalls and white shirt with the cuffs rolled up, a tan bowler hat placed lopsidedly on his mop of hair, and spoke with a lisp.

Luke, who was also black, was 7 years old and liked to keep his hair shaved off completely. Being a bit of a scrapper, especially to those who were bigger or older than him, he was actually a rather nice kid, and always stood up for himself and others, and said he wanted to be a Librarian when he grew up. He always kept a handkerchief in his back pocket and always seemed to have a runny nose. Lucia considered him to be an interesting piece of work, because of his talent for contradicting himself with actions and words.

Thomas, the youngest, being only 2, always seemed to be fussing and sitting in the middle of everything, crying because he couldn't join in on the fun or work. He was still not quite skilled in running yet, and always seemed to be tripping over his shoelaces, which needed to be retied constantly. His hair was sandy brown, and was as fine as goose down, and his eyes were hazel.

Matthew was second oldest, next to Lucia, at 11 years old and liked to be a peacemaker between the younger children. His hair was red and kept short, but he rarely brushed it, so it was spiked in every which direction with no sense of order. Though he was skinny now, Lucia was pretty sure that, with his dark blue eyes, when he got older, he would break a lot of girl's hearts; not because he was fickle, but because he wasn't very perceptive of people around him. In short, Matthew could be called somewhat dense.

James Young, usually called by his last name to avoid confusion, was 4 years old and had very pale white skin that was highly sensitive. Thankfully, Mrs. Gene usually had him cover up when he went outside, or made him wear zinc-cream to keep him from getting a sunburn. His hair was, in contrast, pitch, pitch, black, and seemed to absorb any and all light that came in contact with it; in short, it was dark and dull, with little life of it's own. His eyes, much like Thomas', were hazel as well. Lucia, who read horror books, if asked to describe a vampire, would always have his face in her mind when she read about them.

Judas, was very aloof, which was odd for someone his age (he was 10) and, instead of playing with the others, was sitting under the shade of a tree, paging through a comic book to pass the time. During the day, he was usually like that, but, after everyone else was to bed, he would sneak outside and just stand out in the yard and look up at the stars. Lucia, who rarely slept anyway, would see him climb out his window at night to do that, but she never told the others, feeling that it was all right if he came back in before she turned in for the night; which he usually did. He was a bit rounder than the other boys, not because he ate more than his share, but because he was never as active as the others were. That did not mean that he wasn't physically fit, if pushed, he could keep up with the Bishop boys; which was usually what happened, because it seemed like he was the only one who could catch them and keep them down long enough for the others to catch up. Lucia assumed that it had more to do with having "big bones" than it did with fat.

Simon, despite everyone else's attempts, no one could out-match him with being messy. He loved to help in the small vegetable garden, and he liked it even better when he could make the other boys eat their vegetables, because he helped grow them. He was 8 years old, but he was tall for his age, so many mistook him for being much older than that. He wore his blonde hair longer than he should, his bangs hanging down to his chin, and he usually held it pulled back with a rubber band, still, even with this effort, many of the strands found their way in front of his face, obscuring his icy blue eyes from view at times.

There were times when Lucia felt very out numbered by all of the boys, but thankfully, there were at least two girls who considered her their friend; Tabitha Dorcas and Pheobe Diakonos. Both had brown hair and eyes, though Tabitha's hair was significantly more curly than Pheobe's, were 9 and 10 years old (Pheobe being the older of the two) and liked Lucia to come and watch them put on plays between two oak trees, next to the old wooden fence. They also liked to listen to her tell them her own made-up stories, and it was because of them that she secretly wanted to be a writer when she left the orphanage.

"I just don't know where to start…" Lucia murmured, getting Mrs. Gene's attention.

"Hum?"

Lucia shook her head slowly, continuing to watch the other children. "Nothing, Mrs. Gene."

These were just the children she knew and grew up with, however. Frowning, she turned her attention to the other ones who lived at the orphanage, who were sitting in a circle, playing Duck, Duck, Goose. _'They aren't natural…'_ she thought; of course, she did not mean that they did not act like normal children their ages, or that they did not look like normal children, rather, she felt uneasy when she was around them. It wasn't that they did anything bad, they never seemed to misbehave; which might have been what struck her as something strange in and of itself, instead, things just seemed to happen around them.

Brothers Jacob and Hank Richardson, Lincoln Leader, twins Trisha and Tristen Bates, Sally Schneider, sisters Sandra and Blossom Schotts, Bianca Heipel, Calvin Andronicus, David O'Brian, Rebecca Rule, Mark Hunts, Isaac Malcom, Sapphire Watts, another set of twins Benjamin and Bethany Nordstrom, Adam Ananics, Victor Tate, and Gregory Graham.

'_Who can you trust these days, anyway?'_

_

* * *

_

"_Don't throw your life away so easily…"_

The night after seeing the picture of Sister Azmaria and her friends, Yashua rolled in his bed, unable to quiet his mind of words that seemed to drift out of space to him as he tried to sleep.

"_Oh wow! Can I shake your hand!"_

"_I've learned to never trust devils."_

"_Don't make these four years a waste!"_

Pulling his pillow over his head to try to muffle the rambling in his skull that made his horns vibrate, adding a slow buzz to the background. Growling with frustration, having already spun himself from the head of his bed to the foot of it, and wadded his sheets up onto his stomach from thrashing his limbs, Yashua resolutely, and with some satisfaction, hurled his pillow at the wall, it hitting with a dull thud before flopping to the floor, tossing his sheets aside and getting out of bed.

"It's just no use!" He said, climbing up onto his step stool to reach the wash basin, holding his hands onto the sides of his head as he looked at his reflection.

"_Freedom. Its name is Sin."_

Around him, the air crackled and pulsed with energy, resonating from his horns and covering him completely. Slowly, sinking to his knees on the floor, he wondered, _'Is this what it feels like to go insane?'_ He tried to hide it when he was with the others, but something about that picture acted as a trigger to him; ever since the first wave, he had been hearing things without his ears, things that were never said to him, by voices he never heard. The eyes of the devil in the picture still haunted him; they were the only things that set them apart, even without color, he could tell that Chrono's eyes were darker than his own.

"_Only for ten minutes."_

"Stop it. Please, I don't know who you are… stop it." was Yashua's whispered plea as he was continuously assaulted by things that were not there.

"_I like to look at the city when the sun is setting…"_

Closing his eyes tightly, he tried to concentrate; if he could reign in his power again, he was almost sure that he could stop it. The furniture and windows began to rattle he fought to pull the energy back into himself.

"_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! YOUR DARE STRIKE MY IMPORTANT CONTRACTOR!"_

Letting out a yelp, Yashua curled up on himself, the power slipping out of his grasp again, hitting him full force. From the stairs, he could barely hear the noise of Edward Hamilton climbing the steps, calling, "Yashua! What's going on up there?"

"No. No, please… stop it…" He whimpered, "don't make me hurt him. No Please!"

"_You want this, don't you? Follow me!"_

"_You've forgotten about me, haven't you?"_

Suddenly, the energy died down and Yashua opened his eyes in wonder, looking down at his hands as he slowly sat up again, he was shocked to see that, somewhere, in the course of trying to control the power, his body had fluctuated in shape and size, shredding his shirt and nearly destroying his pants.

"My boy?" Edward asked, knocking on the door at the top of the steps.

"I'm—I'm Jake, Elder, now. But I need to—"

"_I'm Okay! I'm Okay! Change back!"_

Yashua shook his head again to clear it; the voice was more distant, tolerable, but it still left him confused.

"Yashua?" the Elder asked, opening the door slowly and leaning in to check on his charge.

Looking back at him, Yashua remembered was he saying, and paused to form his question carefully. Wetting his lips he asked, "How did Chrono control his powers?" In truth, he had several questions about the other devil who lived in this place before him. _'Why did he help the people who were trying to kill his own kind? I know why I do; these are the people who have shown me kindness, and I have-- want to thank them for that somehow. How old was he? What exactly did he do to help? I know we look similar, but was he really that different from other devils? How, and why?'_

Edward walked into the room slowly, striding over to the small cot to sit down; the springs squeaked in complaint as he lowered himself onto them. Sighing, he looked down at his night shirt and slippers and thought, _'It looks like I won't be turning in early like I hoped.'_ Reaching up to stroke his bearded chin with his hand, the Elder recalled the history of Yashua's predecessor.

"I'm an old man, Yashua. To answer your question, you will have to accept that I'm a lot older than most," He paused to chuckle, "Many can credit that life to my inventions and own gall to not kick the bucket! It's hard to believe, I know, but I'm 84 this year." He reported.

Yashua attempted to keep his face neutral, despite his traitorous thoughts, _'Yah.. it's super hard to believe, I figured that he was older than that.' _knowing, inside himself, that if he was going to have the old man's help, he would need to be respectful and listen to what he had to say.

"Once upon a time, there was a Holy Woman, and her name was Magdalene. I was only 18 when I met her, and as Reverend, I was asked to accompany her to every place she traveled within the Order. Had I known what I know now, I would have done many things differently, but, then again… knowing what I know now, I may not have, because Chrono's story actually starts with Magdalene and me in a carriage, moving across country… Ah, now those were the days…"

* * *

_I guess I was the worst kind of man to ever become a minister, a reverend, or a father to the church (you see, my boy, there are many ways to say that a man is a steward to God); but I believed in his cause, enough that, yes, I have lived in complete – albeit, not without trying to avoid it—chastity from the day that I first put on my black robes to the day that I stepped down from my title… I gave it to Sister Kate—And did you know that she is actually a cousin to Anna? Her biological brother was Anna's father anyway--, who holds the position now._

_When I first started, I was a shrewd man, who could easily calm others, but was not moved by their feelings or thoughts. In short, I was 18 and thought I knew everything—I had always acted much older than I was, back then, but I doubt that you could have guessed that now!_

_Back to the carriage ride. On the day that we left for… well it was this same convent, actually… our destination, Magdalene, who I thought of as a daughter asked me if she would see Chrono. I, not knowing who he was, asked her about him._

"_He's very dark and scary, but he's always crying. Father, if I go do New York, will I see him and be able to ask him why he's so sad?"_

_I was always charmed by her innocent way of speaking; you could say that, because of that, I did not stop and think hard enough when I answered her, saying, "If you see it, Magdalene, then it surly will come true." I never gave it another thought, and it didn't seem to be anything to worry about at the time. My boy, they say that hind-sight is 20/20, living as long as I have now, I know how right they were._

_Not long after leaving her in the care of the other ministers—one of them was actually an Angel, Ewen Remington, but that isn't important right now—and I thought that everything would be fine._

_Then Chrono, one of the highest level devils there ever was in Pandemonium, came and kidnapped her right out from underneath our noses. It was a gutsy move, even for a devil of his power, to break into the place where the ones who hunted his kind lived; When Remington gave me his recount of the situation on that night in Magdalene's room, I was surprised._

"_She didn't even try to fight him. She even moved into the way of our guns when we came to rescue her. She didn't struggle when he took off with her; she didn't even call out for help, Father Hamilton."_

_It was perfectly clear; she left of her own volition. Even today, I do not know if it was because she was curious about the devil or because she had grown tired of her sheltered existence with us and would have left with anyone, even into danger, to be free._

_That was the first time I had had my brushed encounter with Chrono, in his full demonic form—or so I was informed by Remington. The next time would be when he returned with her dead body in his arms. _

_He had come to my office, Sister Kate's office now, his form changed to one that looked more human. He came alone with her, I had forgotten my own gun in my other set of robes that night—otherwise, it would have been tragic, because I would have killed him then, if I had the chance—he placed her on the floor in front of my desk._

"_Just what do you—" I attempted to question his actions._

"_Just… just give her a proper grave… I never meant for this to happen!" He said as he fled, changing forms, which is when I realized something vitally important:_

_His horns were missing from their place on top of his head. All devil's have horns, my boy, they need them to retain astral, energy that keeps them alive. Without his horns, he would die, essentially, he would starve to death. I thought that was what had happened to him, because we never heard anything more from or about him. Of course, I did arrange for Magdalene's tomb to be made out in the New York countryside—Yes, there is a, or there was back in the day, countryside of New York._

_Fifty years came and went; there were always the usual disturbances, but life was relatively easy to handle. I stepped down from my position when I turned 50 and Sister Kate Valentine took my place, while I stayed with the convent as a voice of experience, plus I wanted to realize new tools to help future exorcists—a dream I could know focus on, now that I had the time and resources at my disposal. Remington never aged, because of his angel wings, he was exempt from time; to hide this from others, I arranged for him to leave every five years and come back and serve five more, in short, he always seemed to be experienced, but still young enough to do field work, and no one wondered if he was the same person who was there before._

_It was on one of his trips away that he found the Apostle boy, Joshua Christopher and his older sister, Rosette, at Seventh Bell Orphanage, located in New York's countryside—Now listen, my boy, because this part is vital._

_It was built not far from where we had made Magdalene's grave. It was sealed with holy writing, a strong barrier that could not just be opened by normal humans—made by Remington himself. If I had only known that this could have happened, I might have had her buried here instead of letting her rest outside of the walls; the thought at the time had been that she should have freedom in death, instead of suffering as she had in life…_

_What I had not realized is that the devil Chono, overcome with grief and guilt for her death, had allowed himself to be imprisoned inside the tomb with her._

_Devils, in Pandemonium, receive training to control their power, and with that training, the stronger the devil, the easier it is for them to suppress their Astral usage; Chrono was the only case I had seen who could suppress it to the extent that he would be no bigger or stronger physically than a human child._

_To make this story short, Rosette and her brother opened the tomb. What caused him to not reject them, to become their friend, I do not know, that was never explained to me, though I suspect that Remington knew. Another devil, one who Chrono had sided with when he kidnapped Magdalene, found them and, because he wanted the Apostle Joshua, he had given the boy Chrono's horns. With those horns, Joshua lost his mind and was unable to control their power, Chrono's power, and the result was exactly what happened when you froze the holy water in mid air, only on a scale much grater._

_Rosette made a contract with Chrono who, because he had no horns to gain Astral, needed a new source to draw his power to help her get her brother back. That new source was her soul._

_

* * *

_

"So you see, my boy, they came with Remington to the Order to train Rosette and the photograph was taken of them four years after they came to us."

"So he didn't hide his horns after all…" Yashua mumbled, curious about if, in the end, did they succeed in their life's mission, but too concerned about what this information would relate to him. _'Will I never be able to hide my horns?'_

"Is that what you wanted to know? Many devils, ones much weaker than Chrono was, could hide their horns and many who were stronger could as well. I suspect that, when he had them, he could hide them just as well. It would be your ears I would be worried about. With how large they are, people would stare at them more than your horns." Edward commented with a chuckle.

Yashua touched his ears with his hands. They were rather large, and had tufts of tan colored hair on their tips. They also stuck out of his head at a strange angle, compared to the ears of most humans; whose ears were close to their heads and rounded at the top and dramatically smaller than his own. "I guess so." He said, lowering his hands again he looked at his clothes and winced; there was no fixing them after this, "Elder, do you have any other extra clothes I could wear?"

Edward chuckled and pat the devil boy on the back. "I wondered when you would be asking. You've been growing much faster than I expected. Sister Azmaria had been trying to keep things in your dresser that you would be able to fit, but you usually grow out of an outfit every three days or so." He commented, groaning in time with the springs on the bed as he stood up and walked slowly over to the dresser.

Yashua smiled lightly; he hadn't realized that he wasn't growing at a normal rate. Thinking about it, he could see how odd it must have been to have a two year old who could walk around and talk as well as he could, let alone be able to reach up onto the counter in the workshop, though he still needed a step stool to do so. Azmaria, when she was there, would have him stand with his back against the door jam and she would mark his height with a piece of chalk. Looking at those markings now, he realized that he had grown at least a foot since he first came to New York.

"Here," Edward said, placing a red coat with matching shorts into Yashua's lap, a white shirt with a black string-tie, suspenders, black sash with matching leggings paired with white knee-high socks completed the ensemble. "They might be a touch big still, but you'll grow into them… Hum… That gives me an idea…" And with that, Edward, in a contemplative daze, wandered back down the stairs, closing the door behind him.

Yashua looked back down at the outfit, noting that the coat had only one large button on the top, near the neck, the rest was supposed to lay open; it also had split tails, two in the back and one on each side, which brushed the floor when he put it on. He already had a fair idea who it belonged to before be looked at his reflection in the mirror, but his figure staring back at him only confirmed it. Wrinkling his nose, unsure if he should be flattered or annoyed that everyone continued to treat him like they were one and the same, he sighed. _'Chrono's clothes.' _ Looking back at his reflection he nodded his head once, firmly, coming to a steadfast conclusion.

"We're never going to be friends, are we, Chrono?"

Downstairs, in the workshop, Edward was making a phone call. "Do devil's sleep? Maybe I should have waited until—" he stopped, hearing a click on the other end of the line.

"_This is Duffau."_ A voice on the other end stated. Edward smirked.

'_Bingo.'_ He thought before speaking into the mouthpiece, "Duke Duffau, this is the Magdalene Order. I know it's late, but I needed your expertise involving another devil."

"_What sort of expertise?"_

"It seems that we have attained a child devil and he seems to be having problems with mastering his powers. Would it be possible for you to come and help him?"

For a moment, Edward wondered if they had become disconnected and was about to check when Duffau's reply came through, spoken slowly, as though it's speaker was tense or deep in contemplation.

"_Give me a place for us to meet with you."  
_

Chapter Six End

* * *

I'm sorry, so sorry, I know it's mostly dribble; but it needed to be done, and it's not quite finished yet. Yes, Duffau does play a role in this; I thought it would be good to give him a part, since he is so understated in the series.

Until next time!

Prinder


	7. Chapter 7

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Can a Devil, a Sinner, actually be the son of god? Taking measures into his own hands, Edward has acted on his own and contacted the infamous Duke Duffau, who all-too-easily agreed to meet with the mysterious devil-child Yashua. Sister Kate is, of course, weary, and assigns Mary and Claire to the case, but what awaits them away from New York? Meanwhile, Aion and Satan make their first moves; what significance is Lucia to their plot? And what is their plot, exactly?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter Seven: Duke Duffau**

The trek to Sister Kate's office was uneventful for Mary and Claire, Azmaria had come running into the chapel at close to lunch time, while they were in prayer (they missed morning mass because they were out on a mission and were making up for it when she interrupted them) and she told them that they had marching orders and Sister Kate was waiting in her office to brief them.

"Ever since Rosette died, she's been picking on us." Mary complained, who could be considered a bit of a slacker when she was allowed to be one.

Claire smiled good-naturedly, she just couldn't help it; Mary was calming that way, she always seemed to make the world seem a brighter, happier, place with her innocent ways of thinking. "I'm sure it's just in our heads," Claire responded, "We can't be away any more than Anna and Azmaria are."

"Yeah…" Mary sighed with pity for them, "They never stop moving." She said before letting out a long wail, "AND NEITHER DO WE-EEE!"

Claire shook her head and giggled, raising a hand to her mouth to hide it, before turning the corner, leading them down the corridor to the Headmistress' domicile. Making it to the imposing door, Claire knocked twice before opening it slowly and looking in. "You wanted to see us, ma'am?" She asked, peering at the aging woman at the large desk at the other end of the room.

"Come in Sisters. Close the door behind you, what I am about to tell you is not to go beyond these doors; Not even to the ones involved." Kate commanded, setting her pen aside for the time being and direction her attention solely on the two young women. Carefully, she inspected them with her keen eyes through her spectacles that hung off of the bridge of her nose.

Mary, a short woman with short blonde hair, large blue eyes, and nearly limitless amounts of energy. Her habit was always askew and seemed as naturally lighthearted as she was clumsy. Seeming to illustrate Kate's perception of her, Mary tripped over the corner of the area rug on the floor. Many would be shocked to know that she was born, and raised until she was seven years old, in Queens, New York.

Then there was Claire, who was the same age as Mary, but stood at least two heads taller, with dusty brown hair with matching eyes. Even when she was younger, she was known among her friends for being the most sensible and calm. As a grown woman, that had not changed in the slightest for Claire and, more often than not, she served as a means for counter balancing the chaos that followed in her haphazard partner's wake.

"Ooh, it sounds so secretive! I feel like a double-agent…" Mary announced, her excitement bubbling as her arms curled up on herself, her balled hands at her own shoulder height as she fought the urge to squeal.

"Ma'am, is it that serious?" Claire asked, disregarding Mary's enthusiasm, walking closer to the desk.

"In difficulty, if all goes according to plan… Neither of you should be much more than eye-witnesses, observers to the whole thing. However, since in concerns devils very directly, if it should go wrong, I want two of my best people with no qualms about pulling the trigger." Kate answered, being intentionally vague to test their perceptiveness. Neither one spoke, seeming to wait for her to continue. "The Elder has informed me that Yashua is have difficulties learning to control his demonic powers on his own. Last night, the Elder placed a called to Duke Duffau, a Pursuer who assisted us is the past in the Aion case."

"We remember him," Mary supplied, her personality becoming more somber as she pieced the information together, "It was our first time working closely with devils." Seeing Sister Kate nod her approval, Mary beamed and quieted down for her to continue.

"Duffau has agreed to meet with Yashua and assist him in learning to control his powers before he becomes too dangerous to keep around. I hoped that Yashua would take to his power like a human does to breathing, but it seems that would be expecting too much of him." Kate said, pausing for them to consider the news.

Mary spoke again, her voice becoming shrill with worry, "I saw Yashua running to the water pump yesterday; he's almost as tall as Chrono was in his child form now!"

"I don't think any of us realized that devils grow at an alarming rate when they're younger." Claire added.

"This will be a good chance for the Order to gain new insight about devils. While your task is mostly to ensure that Duffau, while seeming a devil of good intent—he is still a devil, and because of that, he Must Not Be Trusted—, we cannot ever assume that he will not try to sway Yashua to not only train his powers, but to tap into that darkness. I also want you both to keep your eyes and ears out for information about them. Encouraging Yashua to ask questions for you will undoubtedly harvest fruitful bounties of information."

Nodding understandingly, Claire spoke calmly to their headmistress, "You can count on our very best, Sister Kate."

Closing her eyes with acceptance, Sister Kate nodded in return. "May God be with you." She said, the two women smiling softly as they turned and exited the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Meanwhile, Yashua found himself sitting on his bed, wringing his sheets in his small palms as Edward packed a suitcase for him. Having been abandoned before, Yashua suffered from an anxiety about having a similar experience again. "So you will be leaving me with them?" Yashua asked, his body trembling.

"Only for a short while!" the Elder replied, placing another pair of socks into the rigid case. Yashua was not convinced and seemed to grow only that much more fearful. Looking at the boy devil, Edward sighed.

"If I promise to try to master changing my form harder, will you let me stay?" the small boy asked as he wailed, lunging forward to the edge of the bed and clinging to the old man's waist.

"Now see here! It has nothing—Okay so it has a little to do with it, but that isn't the point! The point is that you need help that we can't give you, help that Duffau CAN offer, knowledge that he is willing to share. You can't pass this up, my boy! Do you realize what could happen if you don't get that kind of help now?" Edward encouraged, trying to pry the devil child off of him whilst it sobbed into his white lab coat.

"But if I leave, Sister Kate might not let me back in! You could forget me! What if—"

"—That's not going to happen!" Mary announced cheerfully, standing at the top of the stairs with Claire just behind her, having run all the way to the workshop after receiving their orders. Yashua blinked at them, his eyes still watery, not sure just what she meant when she interrupted him.

"Well hello Sisters!" the Elder exclaimed, using Yashua's momentary shock to peal him away. "You look well."

"We were told by Sister Kate that we were accompany Yashua during his visit with Duffau." Claire stated crisply before making eye contact with the small devil and adding, with a smile, "To make sure everything will be all right." It was hard to not be comforting to the poor thing while his face was written with distraught, every inch of him seemed to be exuding senseless panic.

"See that!" the Elder chimed, looking down at the boy, who seemed to suddenly become shy, having slipped off of the bed and shuffled his small form behind the old man's legs. "These girls wouldn't let you down! They'll be with you the whole time!"

Yashua only peered at them from his hiding place, his large yellow eyes trembling with something that Claire could not decrypt. Mary, on the other hand, seemed to understand what he was feeling, because she squatted down to his level and gave him a large smile that seemed to envelop her whole face. "You'll like us. I'm pretty stupid, so I'm easy to talk to, and Claire's the gentlest person that I've ever met." She said, laughing as she made fun at her own expense.

Slowly he seemed to lessen his trembling and inched out from behind his guardian. While he had decided to not wear the red trench coat (it was still much too big for him), he still wore the shorts and white button-up shirt with all of the other accessories; at first, he had been confused by the thin black material that looked something like nylons (it was tucked out of sight inside the shirt) but as it turned out, it was a full-body suit that stretched beyond all reason, yet shrank back down to fit like a second skin. The end result was that, now, the only bare skin of his that was exposed were his hands and face—which only served to make him just that much more like his predecessor. In some ways, he was very glad that he still could not hide his horns, because that seemed to be the only thing that kept people from calling him by the sinner's name.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, an indicator of his discomfort at their scrutiny, he opened his mouth to ask, "Who are you?" Part of his reason for his fear was that he did not particularly know who they were (though, he had seen them around, and Sisters Anna and Azmaria seemed to get along with them well) exactly, and what their feelings were about him. Some of the Nuns were terrified of him, and many made it a point to make that very clear right away when they would see him. A few others, though not nearly as many as he would have expected (he never forgot for a minute that this was a house of God, the people there were ones who were trained to kill his kind, and that he they likely had seen enough of his race who were cruel enough to justify their reactions), were to be considered overtly hostile and he took great care to avoid them whenever he had the chance. He knew for a fact that some of them wouldn't bat an eye at training their glowing pistols on him and pulling the trigger. While they did not seem to fit either of these people-types in the times that he had seen them, he also know humans to be fickle and tended to change their opinions when others who might disagree were present.

"I'm Claire Marshall," Claire responded tonelessly, neither sounding displeased nor very ecstatic, "And this is my Partner—"

"Mary Campbell!" Mary interrupted, reaching her hand out to shake his small one, her palm nearly encompassing his own.

Smiling, though still slightly nervous, Yashua moved his arm to return the shake once before being released from her grip and saying, "Yashua… Yashua," He paused to look at the Elder, as if to ask him silently for permission for something. Edward nodded, and Yashua looked at them again and finished his introduction, "Diablo Richardson. Yashua Diablo Richardson." It was a name he pieced together with the old man's help. Once he had learned what his birth parents' last name was, he felt the need for something to distinguish the devil part to him, the part that was not woolly something he considered to be proud of, so the name 'Diablo' only seemed natural to him, as it implied exactly what he felt he deserved.

At first, Edward had questioned the boy, _'Why would you want everyone, even when you eventually will be able to hide it completely, anyone, to know that you are a devil?' _the Elder had pondered, and then asked the boy.

"_Why do you choose to use the name Elder when people can look at you and tell that you're old?"_ the boy had rebuked, only to be chased by a flying wrench that was hurled in his direction by the peeved Mr. Hamilton.

'_Why indeed? The same way that doctors announce themselves as such needlessly, the same way that small children let you know that they are four-and-three-quarter-years old.'_ the old man thought, as he watched from the window as the two sisters drove off with the small devil in the car that Sister Kate had issued to them for the trip. He squinted through his, ironically, rose-tinted glasses as he noted that the boy in question had his nose pressed to the back window longingly, seeming to be even more unwilling to leave than when he had been sitting on his bed.

'_A more pressing question should obvious. Instead of asking why it is, you should ask,' _parting his worn lips to speak, he murmured the last of his thought aloud, "Why not?"

* * *

Ewen looked over at Pandemonium's head, it placed in a large jar next to his cage; it was a rare occasion when both Satan and Aion were not in the place they kept him, and he found himself both bored and slightly curious. Sometimes, when no one else was around, he would see the head's mouth and eyes open and seem to take-in the world around it. Wryly, he found himself striking up a one-sided conversation with the object.

"Are you as concerned about what they want with you as I am about what they plan do to with me?" He asked, pausing to chuckle, "So you're the mother of all devils… I bet you weren't planning on Aion taking your head, were you? Good help is to find these days, and people you can trust is even harder…" He glanced at the head again, noting that its eyes had opened and were drowsily scanning the room, "Even from your own kin, I guess, it must be next to impossible." He said, its eyes seeming to settle on his own.

His interest seeming to increase, raising blonde eyebrow at it to punctuate that fact, he shifted so that he could face it more fully. "Can you hear me?" he asked. "Just wink your right eye if you can." He added as an afterthought, in case it was unable to speak without a windpipe, lungs, diaphragm, or vocal cords—which, considering all of the things it lacked, despite being a devil head, the chance of it being able to speak was laughable.

It winked its right eye, complying with his request. Though surprised by this fact, he was determined to make sure it wasn't a simple fluke.

"Are you the real head of the Pandemonium?"

Again, it winked its right eye, being unable to do much else within the confines of the tube-like case that held it suspended in green-tinged liquid. Ewen raised one of his hands to his face and stroked his jaw, ignoring the long bristles that made his beard; under other circumstances he would never have allowed it to become as scruffy as it was, but his cage was rather small, and they had made it a personal point to not leave anything that could be used as a weapon within his reach. Turning his attention to the room where they were kept, he considered his situation for the umpteenth time since he had been placed there.

'_How long has it been? More than days, that's to be sure; weeks, months, it's also possible that it has been years.'_ He thought, scanning the room. The space beyond his cage was small, no more than eight-by-ten cubic feet, and was covered completely with fake oak paneling, which matched the stain on the wood floor and door. The only parts of the room that were, in fact, not oak, were his metal cage, the head's enclosure, and the white ceiling with a small fan that turned slowly circulating the air in the room.

If anyone saw him in the state that he was in, he was sure that two things would happen; one, he would be accused of being too lazy to move, and two, they would laugh at his misery. He couldn't blame them if they did either or both; without his wings he was weaker than most humans, the only thing that gave him an edge at all was that he still had experience and knowledge of things that Aion and Satan didn't realize. In short, he was in a stalemate, unable to move, but unable to be just pushed aside.

Wryly, Ewen chuckled to himself, _'It seems that I am still left to just sit and watch this whole thing play out. God does have a sense of irony.'_

Pandemonium's head opened its mouth slowly, a yellow light flickering within its gaping jaws. Ewen blinked at it as a woman's voice rang through his head, much in the same way God's own voice had done, before the fallen angel had taken off his wings.

"_Jehovah is not the one who you must place your ire."_ The voice said, every syllable in time with a flicker of the glowing light.

Ewen smiled charmingly; a habit he had trained himself into making when he noticed something others didn't. "So you hear thoughts as well. You must also be connected to your real owner, still, am I right?" He queried, his lips still twisted up in a disarming smile that, at one time, made the stone-hard Sister Kate at ease with him. There were times when being an angel had it's perks; having the skills to make anyone trust them wholeheartedly was very useful in his work—or it was when he still worked for God. Though he doubted the Mother of Devils would be so easily enchanted; he couldn't hold himself back. He would never be certain if this tactic was effective on the devil-woman's head, because it had closed its eyes and did nothing more.

Lacking anything better to do, Ewen stood up in his cage, his fine blonde hair brushing its ceiling, and stretched his legs. It wouldn't do him any good if, when the time came (and it would come—he had to stay optimistic for his own sake, if not for the sake of the rest of the world), he couldn't stand on his own feet or move on his own. Looking at the doorway at the other end of the room, placing his hands on his hips, Ewen spoke to the quiet, "So where in the blazes are those two devils now?"

* * *

After seeing Yashua, Sister Claire, and Mary off, Sister Kate returned to her office to contemplate their current situation. Sighing, she turned her gaze down to the Earl Gray tea in her china cup. Being a headmistress, there was a heavy burden placed on her by the Magdalene Order, which was first established overseas and then moved to Chicago; in future, it would be called "The Main Branch." There were many branches all over America, but none (much to Sister Kate Valentine's credit) were as organized or capable as the New York branch. With this, however, came setbacks; the other branches expected a level of ability from New York that, unfortunately, Sister Kate always feared that they would not be able to provide.

Though the Magdalene Order upheld the facade of a Catholic Church (strictly speaking, they used proper terminology and the lower class exorcists—Assistants to Novices—wore proper Catholic garb, to hoodwink the public, as they were generally the classes that were assigned to deal with social affairs), though many upheld differing views of the same religion within the order (Gilliam, from the San Francisco branch, was actually a Jewish rabbi) they maintained the look and general feel of Catholicism as it was the best cover for their order.

At the same time, however, many of the "Nuns" and "Monks" that worked under her, still took official Vows of Service (Such as the Vow of Devotion and Chastity, which her niece, Anna, took—the same vow that Kate, herself, took when she stepped up as headmistress, much to the dismay of the brothers of the Order, who considered her to be more than attractive in her youth) when asked if they would like to continue working for the Order when their time for renewal came up. All of these vows were optional, and, so long as one kept up and maintained the appearance that they were being upheld (at least when out in public), they were only just simple tokens of commitment to their cause.

Within the order itself, there was an order. Those at the top were the Chairmen, who were the senior members of the order and, as such, and they were in charge of maintaining the sanctity within the organization. Below the Chairmen, there were Headmasters (such as Sister Kate). Below the Headmasters were ones like Remingtion and Gilliam (Called Fathers, Ministers, or Reverends—usually determined by levels of excellence on the field, gender, or for how long they have been a part of the order). After them came the Militia (Often called by that name—though the men in the Militia were also called Brothers as they skipped the Novice level altogether), below that, the Novices, then Students (those learning how to use weapons, not to mention strengths and weaknesses of devils), and finally the Assistants (who were only given minimal training and gained experience in the field by working with those in higher ranks).

Sister Kate considered herself to be exceptionally knowledgeable when it came to the inner workings of the Magdalene Order, and her intelligence in regards to religions was second only to Remingtion, who was an Archangel and lived with the order longer than Edward Hamilton. Despite all of this, (or, rather, because of it) Sister Kate had a never-ending problem.

"How do you explain things to those who need information, but not give away information that they do not need?" She questioned to her self, glaring into the brown liquid that steeped in her cup, her mind drifted onto a separate topic; the Devils, Yashua and Duke Duffau.

Like the Angels, Devils serve God; though the means in which they do so differs from that of the angels, who aid God by being a protective and holy light to guide the people, could be considered Shepherds, tending to God's flocks. Devils, in contrast, act much like the dogs, who heard the sheep with fear; acting as a means to scare them from stepping off of the path of light. Devils feed off of this fear and, with more fear, they become stronger. Angels receive their power through prayer, and so, when there devils, there is fear, and when there is fear, the sheep of God pray, and this prayer gives the Angel's strength enough to protect the flock from the devils stepping out of line.

That is the natural order of things in God's world. But the similarity between Devils and Angels doesn't end there. Both in the Devil and Angel worlds, there exists a hierarchy, for angels, these classes are called "Choirs," and, going from 1 to 9 (one being the weakest and nine being the strongest), these Choirs are (from weakest to strongest) Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. In Devil society, there exist Seven ranks (excluding that of the Queen), the highest being a Duke, the other ranks are (from weakest to strongest) the Nameless, Legion, Baron, Viscount, Marquis, Earl and then Duke.

For those that are aware of the close connection Devil's have to God, deciding, or continuing, to fight against them is somewhat of a conundrum. It is also because of this uncertainty that Sister Kate had allowed the Sinner Chrono, and now, the Devil Yashua to live within the confines of the New York branch. While she was not pleased to continue making deals with devils, even with ones like Duke Duffau, who had a strict code of ethics that he expected his minions to follow; she understood the Elder's reasons for doing so without speaking to her first.

'_If the Devil boy does not learn to control his powers, he may risk calling out to that darkness and bringing chaos and mayhem in his wake. However, by sending him to a devil to learn these skills, we may run the risk of him intentionally being corrupted and cause the same problem anyway!'_ she thought as she raised her cup to her lips, sipping the delicate brew to calm her nerves before returning it to its saucer, the china meeting with a subtle clink. _'Catch 22.'_

A knock at her office door drew her out of her thoughts. Lifting her head, she turned her gaze to it and spoke in a clear voice, "Come in." The handle turned slowly, and Azmaria, her rose-toned eyes narrowed somberly, walked in, followed by the freckled face of her partner, Anna.

"We heard about Yashua." Anna stated as she stopped just behind Azmaria in front of Kate's desk.

"I can understand why you think it's best for him to go learn how to use his powers with other devils, but why didn't you send us with him?" Azmaria asked, her voice cracking slightly, becoming shrill with worry. "I know Duke Duffau, I could have made things easier for him, I could—"

"Sister Azmaria," Kate said, raising her hand, her tone demanding silence. Both women grew quiet. Breathing deeply to calm herself, Kate paused to sip her tea, "That is exactly why I chose not to have you accompany him." Seeing their perplexed stares in her direction, she reiterated, "Because you both are already so close to both devils, I thought it best to have two who may not be so lenient in regards to what sort of training Yashua will get."

"Ehhh," Anna said, scratching the side of her head, "I don't get why you'd think we'd do that—" Anna and Azmaria inhaled sharply, startled, when Sister Kate slammed her hands onto her desk, her eyebrows twitching with frustration.

"Because you're emotionally attached to the boy, and because Azmaria knows Duke Duffau on a first-name basis, you stand a greater risk of trusting him instead of your GUTS!" She bellowed, her eyes clamped shut with barely suppressed rage. Knowing that they had been stunned silent once again, she continued, saying, "The fact that you are in here now only proves my point. As it stands now, the circumstances around Yashua's existence are mysterious at best. The fact that he looks like Chrono did NOT go unnoticed, Sisters, and neither did the fact that he also seems to share the late Sinner's powers." Turning her head slightly to look at Azmaria pointedly, she added, "I also know that some of you would give nearly anything for that to be true. But it must never be forgotten that he is still a devil and that everyone that he has come into contact with in his short time before coming here has either died mysteriously or at the very least been mentally traumatized."

"Ma'am, I know he's a devil, but can you really blame that on him when he was only just a baby?" Anna questioned incredulously.

"Sister Anna, how old is the devil boy now?" Kate asked, not waiting for a response, "And how old does he look, or behave? Is it not true that he is growing both mentally and physically at an alarming rate? Time has little ruling on devils, and I suspect that it holds even less control on one that can manipulate it."

Sensing that the discussion was a lost cause on their part, Azmaria curtseyed lightly, her partner stared at her with surprised silence, as she said to the headmistress, "We're sorry to have bothered you Ma'am. Excuse us, please, and we will be on our way."

Kate sighed, leaning back slightly into her chair, nodding her head slightly in turn. "You may leave." She said, allowing Anna to follow her partner's example and leave the room, waiting until they had closed the door behind them before standing to look out the large window. _'Unfortunately, the only thing I can do, now, is pray that we are not wrong in our actions. If he is Chrono, what reason does he have to come back? What could God have planned for us?'_

_

* * *

_

"Ester! Get me a sinker and a cup of mud!" Lucia called as she slapped a note down onto the order rack, it being secured up by a small hook as she spun it around to the kitchen side of the busy diner before hearing a call from one of the other waitresses and adding, "Make that a double! Table 14!"

"Dry up, Lucia! We're going as fast as we can!" Ester hollered back, but not before turning on the rest of the kitchen staff and spurring them into going faster. Lucia sighed, glancing around the diner, swiping her hand up to push a stray hair away from her face, only to have it fall back again. Hearing the order bell, she turned and quickly grabbed the plates that were set out for her and taking them to the proper tables.

If she let herself think about it, she could be honest and feel like she had been working in this place forever, and yet still feel like she had only left the shelter of the orphanage yesterday. It had been surprising when she had left the place she had called her home for six years; even some of the strange children cried, almost more so than Tabitha and Pheobe. Remembering to smile as she greeted two customers as they sat down, she thought, while nodding her greeting, _'Not that it made a lot of difference. They've probably already forgotten all about me by now.'_ Turning her attention to the men who had picked up their menus. "Anything to start off with, fellows? We have ice tea?" she asked, hinting as she leaned slightly forward on their table. It wasn't that she was a gold-digger, not really, more it was just something she had learned to do out of habit; men tipped better when you flirted, and when so much of your living wage depended on the generosity of the customers, there was just no way around it if you liked such luxuries as eating and living indoors.

"Is it sweet tea? Real sweet tea?" one of the men asked, his blue eyes lifting up from his menu to gaze at her; his accent was southern. Sighing, he added, "They just never make it like they do back home."

Taking his statement as a challenge, she smiled broadly, putting her knuckles onto her hips. "You sure? How sweet is sweet? I'll make a bet; if it's not sweet enough, I'll pay your tab."

At this the other man, his hair was bleach white to match his coat and pulled back into a low ponytail, looked up at her as well, his violet eyes glimmering with something unreadable. The blue eyed man smiled, flicking a spiked bang out of his eyes. "That's an offer I just can't refuse. Make me a cup of tea that's sweeter than a woman's kiss."

Lucia smirked, quickly scribbling, in big letters;**_ 1 Sweet tea. Make it cough syrup, Ester _**before turning to the other man, punctuating her writing by saying, "Copacetic… Something for you, sir?"

"A cup of coffee. Black, strong, with no sugar." He said, his voice rich and smooth.

Quickly, she wrote **_1 Java—make it curl nose-hairs_**. "Anything else?" She asked, attempting to hide her faint blush from hearing the voice of the man with white hair. Considering his friend's less refined speech, she was taken by surprise by his delicate base and his carefully chosen words. Michigan was not well known for people with almost European rhythms in their talk, so when she had the pleasure of meeting people with that rare cadence, she found herself thinking back to a time when she, too, could talk in such a manner.

"We will have to look over the menus further." The violet eyed man answered, nodding to the waitress as she drifted away, lost in her own thoughts.

Satan raised an eyebrow at Lucifer. Lucifer, who still considered himself to be Aion, smirked back at him, his eyes peeking over his glasses and sparking with mischief. "What do you think of Holy, now?" Satan asked, leaning back slightly in the booth, propping one arm up onto the back of the seat, twisting his head to the side to look over his shoulder at the rest of the diner.

Aion reached his hand up and placed it onto the menu that was spread open in front of him, running his fingers over it, as though immersed in the words on the jacket-covered page, he answered, "She will be perfect envy." Looking up at Satan again, he added, "Yes, she will suit our plans nicely."

Satan pressed his lips together in a somber line, seeing their waitress returning with their drinks out of the corner of his eyes, he refocused his gaze onto his charge. "Ducky. Let's hit her on all sixes."

Returning to table seven, Lucia placed the sweet tea and black coffee in front of the respective customers. "There you go." She said cheerfully as Satan lifted the iced glass to his lips to take a sip. "Well, sweet tea, isn't it?" She asked.

"And how…Copacetic, Holy." He answered, snapping his fingers lightly under the table. Lucia paled as her eyes grew wide.

"H-how did—" She stammered as she backed away from them, screaming when she tripped over something solid and fell to the ground, crashing into the trash bins behind her. Gasping, she looked around herself wildly, realizing that she was no longer in the diner.

"We know all about you, Holy." Aion replied as he sipped his coffee, no longer sitting in the booth, rather, standing next to a worn picket fence with chipped white paint. Satan leaned down to stare into her eyes, his spiked blonde hair mingling with her dark locks, only a breath away from her face.

"Everything about you, Holy. Everything. Even how you lied to hide your own memories." Satan said, reaching a hand up to caress her face, smirking when her breath hitched in her throat, Aion coming to stand next to him.

"We know your darkest desires; your secret wish to reclaim the position of power you once had…"

Lucia started to tremble, shaking her head back and forth, unable to close her eyes. "No… No…" she chanted, the two devils chuckling at her distress. Aion reaching down and touching her forehead, a shock wave of force ripping into her form before she fell into unconsciousness.

Chapter Seven end

* * *

Oh no! The horror! The shame! Say it isn't so! It's ANOTHER FILLER CHAPTER! Again, I'm sorry for all of that, but it's very important to the story, I assure you.

Oh, and to those who wonder why the Sisters like Azmaria and Anna think that they are working for the church and not just for an organization that deals with devils, it's all part of the cover. If you repeat the same mantra enough, eventually, one would assume (if you've done it since you were a kid), you would start to believe it yourself.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Love you oodles!

Prinder


	8. Chapter 8

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Can a Devil, a Sinner, actually be the son of god? The Seventh Bell Children seem to be doing their best to cope with Lucia leaving them—and from Mrs. Gene's perspective, that is not very well. In the meantime, Yashua's training has just begun, but is he really up for the challenge? And what are the "voices" trying to tell him? And who is the woman in his reflection?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter Eight: Order**

At the sound of a loud crash from the living room, followed by screams and yelling, Mrs. Gene hurried to the scene of the crime, her shoes clicking on the floorboards firmly as she tried to make it there before they hid the evidence. _'Honestly!'_ She thought, _'They've just started acting up like this ever since Lucia left. They're just acting out because they're insecure, but this is growing to be too much!'_ For weeks now, it seemed, the children had been living in a state of unrest, since Lucia turned 15 and moved out of Seventh Bell Orphanage. She promised many that she would write to them, but so far no letters had come to any of the kids.

This was a scene that Mrs. Gene knew all too well, and she had actually grown accustomed to having to comfort the young ones when they realized that, eventually, they would have to leave some day as well. Sometimes the ones that would leave would be adopted, and that was treated like a celebration; but all too often, that wasn't the case. Of course, Mrs. Gene always hoped for caring adults to come and fall in love with one or more of her charges, but those people always seemed few and far between.

"Children, was that the lamp that fell?" She called, picking up her pace as she heard muffled panic and the sound of glass tinkling.

"Ohh! Ohh! Mrs. Gene! Luke was playing ball in the house!" Sally squealed, running out of the living room and pouncing onto Mrs. Gene's skirt, clinging for her life as the boy in question screamed his rage ("Sally, you big tattletale!"), the other children at his heels.

It took a great deal of effort to calm all of them down. Thoroughly scolding all of them for roughhousing, prying Sally away from her legs so that she could walk again, and sending them outside to get some fresh air before the autumn air set-in. Sighing as she watched them from the doorway, Mrs. Gene couldn't stop herself from shaking her head. It was hard giving all of them the attention they deserved, even with all of the help from the Magdalene Sisters at the New York branch. _'The poor things…'_ she thought, focusing her attention on the 11 who had arrived, in force it seemed, no more than a year ago.

Brothers Jacob and Hank Richardson, 6 and 7 years old, had matching noses and cheek bones, but their similarities ended there. Hank (the oldest) had green eyes and blonde hair, which he kept neat at all times, only resorting to fist fights when someone tried to mess it up. Jacob was leaner than his brother, and had dark brown hair with light brown eyes and a harmonica in his back pocket.

Lincoln Leader, usually called "Cole" by his friends, was 9 and had been shuffled to Seventh Bell from three other Orphanages because he was "uncontrollable." Mrs. Gene never believed the stories; he was actually a quiet boy, and only acted up when others tried to take his things. He was a strapping young fellow with pale blue eyes and very fine blonde hair that fell limply on the sides of his long face.

Twins, Trisha and Tristen Bates, were completely identical with exception of their genders. With dusty, pale brown (almost blonde, but seemed to lack the proper sheen), hair and searching blue eyes; even for being 3 years old, they were exceptionally curious. Both were also emotional and very sensitive to others, always becoming upset when someone else was hurt.

Sally Schneider, the German "tattletale," (as she was not-so-fondly called by the other children) loved to run around and scream at the top of her lungs. She was only 5 years old, and liked to keep her hair boyishly short, her brown locks spiking in every direction. Her eyes were almost a chocolate brown, and had a strange lightness to them that made people become hypnotized by her grace and agility. Obviously a tomboy, she still had a softer side to her that demanded lots of hugs and attention.

Sisters Sandra and Blossom Schotts, also German, were drastically different in age. Blossom was 11, while her little sister, Sandra, was 4. While, technically, only half-sisters (Blossom's mother died when she was very little, her father then remarried, and then was killed in a bank robbery, trying to protect his second wife, who also died on the scene) their bond was stronger than any other. Blossom, while she and her sister had the same deep brown eyes, had long and lustrous black hair, and Sandra had wavy red locks; they would spend hours just sitting on their beds brushing each others hair. Mrs. Gene, when she watched them, found herself looking to their connection as an example of unconditional love. It was strange, despite how young they were, she found herself looking up to them in regards to how to care for others.

Bianca Heipel, 11 with blue eyes and a mind for romance. Originally, she was born in France, but her family packed up and moved to America; it was a perfectly normal thing, except the ship they were on was attacked and only a few survived. Mrs. Gene was never told what attacked the ship, only that Bianca, who did not speak very good English yet, had no family left. Bianca, herself, liked to lock herself away from the rest of the world, reading books (romances, classics, and anything in French—if she could find it). Her curly blonde hair was something of a prize, and she fussed over it more than the Schotts' sisters did on their own. Combined.

Calvin Andronicus, like Cole, came with a large chip on his shoulder. Even though he was only 6, he had come from a violent childhood, his parents drinking themselves to death on Bootleg liquor, being sent to live with his aunt who had a mental illness, only to end up in an orphanage that, one year later, was destroyed by a vandal's fire with half of it's occupants still locked inside. The result was that his body was slightly deformed from the flames and was constantly picked on before coming to Seventh Bell. It was because of this past that he rarely gave a large smile to anyone; instead, he would smile with his lips tightly pressed together, as if to keep a secret from escaping, his dark green eyes lost under his sloppy black bangs.

David O'Brian, with short, curly, dull red hair, brown eyes, and patches on the elbows of his shirts (he was always wearing them out), he was as scrappy as he was independent. He didn't like help with anything, and even though he was only 7, he insisted on doing everything himself, and that included tying his shoes and buttoning his shirts, which always ended up having the buttons out of alignment and his laces coming undone.

Rebecca Rule's hair was a deep, rich, mahogany color, neither dark brown or red, but a mix of both. Her eyes were dark, nearly black, and her skin was a fine cream-tan. She was quiet, compared to the other children her age (she was 8), and liked to sit back and watch things and always knew things before all of the other kids. Mrs. Gene never quite knew how she did it.

Then there was Mark Hunts and Isaac Malcom, both 4 years old and best friends. Virtually impossible to separate, Mark was drawn to Isaac like a moth to flame, in every sense of the phrase because Isaac was known for being astoundingly accident prone. Everywhere he went, there was usually a crash, or a bang, or a thud, followed by scream of "I'm okay." While they both looked very much alike, with the same blonde hair in bowled hair-cut with mild green eyes, they were distinctly different in the way that Isaac always had a bruise, scrape or Band-Aid somewhere on him, while Mark seemed to walk on air, unable to trip or fall even if he tried.

Adam Ananics, Victor Tate, and Gregory Graham, 7, 8, and 9 years old (in that exact order) all had come to the same conclusion: all girls had cooties. While most boys their ages, and even older, had this belief, they took it to new levels, refusing to sit next to a girl when eating at dinner, or staying in the same room as one. Adam had dark brown hair and eyes, Victor had black hair that was buzzed short on the sides, long on the top, with equally dark eyes with thick glasses, and Gregory had pale, spiked, blonde hair with stormy gray eyes.

Sapphire Watts, much like Bianca, was somewhat of a young romantic, and seemed to have develop a crush for Adam, who was the same age she was, and followed his "terrific trio" (as the trio so-dubbed themselves) everywhere they went (much to their displeasure). Her dancing brown eyes and orange-red hair paired with her bubbly smile was sure to be a formidable combination when she was older, until then, she was a small thing with knobby knees and kept snagging the end of her skirt on brambles and thorns or whatever else the boys would run through to try to escape her.

And then, finally the second set of twins, Benjamin and Bethany Nordstrom. Both with honey blonde hair and corn-flour blue eyes, they were another example of an inseparable family bond, a bond that seemed to be stronger then death itself; because that seemed to be the only thing that saved them from the tragic end their parents faced one rainy night in New York. Only a couple of months older than Tristen and Trisha, they had turned 3 years old one week ago.

Despite all of their differences, all of them had something in common besides being merely orphaned in this chaotic world. '_Though they all had Sad and pitiable pasts, some similar, some worlds apart, they all have bright futures ahead of them. That is my one true belief.'_ Mrs. Gene thought, her eyes glazing over slightly as they mingled freely with each other. At Seventh Bell, in that fenced in yard on the hill, age and time didn't seem to matter; in truth, it never had. It was strange, but, even though she had been unfrozen, _'so long ago, now…'_ even after all of the children who played with the Joshua and Rosette Christopher had grown up and moved away, the orphanage moved from the fringes of New York to Michigan, time still seemed to be something she never noticed passing. Even though each child grew and changed in her eyes, and every year she found more wrinkles on her once young and heart-shaped face. No matter how much gray cropped up in her dusty brown hair, or how thick the glasses on her nose became.

All she wanted was to just watch the children, and, for a little while, give them a solitary moment of happiness. _'Tom was adopted just after Lucia left; it can't all be bad. There is a home out there for each of these children, and, for now, they have all of the time in the world for that home to find them.'_

That was her wish.

* * *

Yashua slipped from shadow to shadow in the mansion, flapping his wings silently to keep his weight off of the, otherwise, creaky floor as he headed for Sisters Mary and Claire's room for the duration of their stay with the devil duke. Making use of his glowing yellow eyes, Yashua could see perfectly in the dark, in fact, he felt strangely at ease with it, despite the feelings of being alone that most people associated with the blackness that shrouded the hallway in the gothic home. Without even realizing he had done so, he found himself thinking back to the first day that they had arrived in Denver Colorado.

'_My horns are still buzzing,'_ he thought, pausing in his movements to touch the side of his head at the base of the jagged ivory where it met his scalp. If anyone had asked him if he was frightened of Duke Duffau, now, his answer would have been confused, it was, of course, a "Yes," he was afraid, but at the same time resounding "No."

They had driven the whole way to Denver, a feat that was difficult, despite the advancements in motor vehicles and roads, but because he was unable to hide his horns under the hat that Sister Azmaria had given him, there was no alternative; they couldn't risk riding the train in open public so long as he was with them. His anxiety along the way made it next to impossible for him to sleep or eat.

'_Not that I really need to do either, it's just that it's comforting to have the choice or ability to do them.'_ He thought, continuing on his way down the hall.

They met Duffau across the street from a church. Apparently, it was considered "neutral ground" for both sides, but Yashua was not entirely sure why. It was late in the evening when they arrived at the site; it had taken a level of courage that Yashua didn't know he possessed to leave the Ford and face the other devil on his own two feet. For a strange reason, he knew that, if he didn't do at least that much, he wouldn't be worthy to call himself a devil, let alone a man. He still remembered Mary's stammering voice, being the first person to speak in their silent showdown of wills.

"_B-before we begin, I want to know why you're still alive? I thought you died trying to find Aion and Rosette."_

Yashua frowned at the statement even now; _'Just who is Aion?'_ had been his thought at the time, though he tried to hide his own confusion, hoping that, if it did show, it would be assumed that it was only because he wasn't aware that Duffau was supposed to be "dead."

"_Devils like myself do not simply die, Sister."_ Was the other devil's reply, his face obscured under his hat and trench coat collar, which was turned up to the eerie wind that left the smaller devil with a chill, even now, days later. Duffau was dark and imposing, but also seemed to give off a feeling of nobility that Yashua had not realized existed before, and he couldn't help but be inspired by him, even when Duffau added, in a mysterious tone that revealed nothing to its cryptic meaning, _"But then, since you are here, you must have suspected as much."_

'_What a strange man,'_ Yashua pondered, hiding his wings again as he touched his full weight onto the floor in front of the correct door. _'Are all devils so…so… indistinct?'_

Yashua, in all honesty, did not know what to expect from the imposing devil at that time; of course, he never thought he would be accepted with open arms, that never struck him as proper etiquette among their kind, but neither was he expecting to be slapped across the face so hard that what little reign on his form he had was lost as he was sent spinning to the concrete while the two nuns screamed the devils' names.

"_Yashua! Mr. Duffau!"_

Raising his hand to the knob, Yashua slowly turned it and pushed against the heavy door. It was solid and seemed unwilling to move, even with his devil strength. Part of his mind wondered if that was intentional, for the safety of the women inside, _'Protection from what, though? Not me. Surely not me… right?'_ while the other part still lingered on the words that Duffau had said, when he had asked him why he had been hit.

"_Let them see your whole face for what it is and never make the mistake of hiding the smaller differences first! Consider that your first lesson."_

With Yashua's other hand, he reached up to feel his forehead, he could still feel the three "blood drops" and the metal "clock hands" that marred his facade. Even when he was a baby, he hid the markings when he was in that infantile state. He did not know how he knew, especially when his first memories had been of being locked within the cold and bitter darkness of the bomb shelter, but a part of him still recognized his unconscious efforts to exist with humans before he had even left the womb. _'Why couldn't I just have hidden the horns instead! I knew the other marks weren't right as a baby, why did I have to mess those up?'_ his mind screamed, his eyes welling up with tears, spilling from a part of himself that he hated to acknowledge.

He was Guilty. Guilty of being unable to protect the people who wanted a child from seeing the monster that they had nurtured within. Yashua's greatest pain was knowing that he, alone, was the cause for their madness, their insanity, their venom and, ultimately, the death of a man he had never met: his own father.

"Yashua?" Claire's soft voice drove him from his thoughts. Looking up, he focused his watery eyes at the nun who had opened the door the rest of the way without him realizing it, and now stared down at him with worried and shocked eyes as Mary snored deeply somewhere behind her, inside their room.

The blood drops, placed in the shape of a triangle on his forehead, reflected the light from the window behind Claire briefly before he let out a strangled sob and imbedded his face in her legs as the tightly sealed emotion made his small body convulse and heave against her as she regarded him with shock and pity. Pulling the small devil away slightly so that she could lower herself to his level, Claire wrapped her arms about his shoulders in a hug, encouraging him to bury his face in the puffed sleeve of her uniform. "What's wrong, Yashua?" she asked, closing her eyes to focus on his whimpers, failing to notice the towering, dark, form that moved to stand behind the small boy in the hallway.

Duffau pulled a pinch-full of whiskered hair from his beard, raising his hand to his lips, he blew on the dull black hairs, releasing them from his fingers to dance on his breath. Interrupting the scene, he said, "If you can find the energy to wail so loud as to wake the dead, then you have enough energy to begin your first lesson."

Yashua paused in his cries, turning his head slowly to look at the other devil. Choking back a sniffle, he peeled his form away from Sister Claire and turned the rest of his body to look up at Duffau, pulling his shoulders back slightly, he stared back. Though Yashua tried to hide his fear, Duffau could nearly taste the odor as it filtered its way up into his sensitive devil nostrils. Claire stood slowly, seeing the slight tremble that vibrated from Yashua's back and into the metallic bone "tail" that branched off from his head at the base of his neck.

"What would his first lesson be, Mr. Duffau?" She asked him, her voice calm, the subtle hint of curiosity lingering only a second on her lips.

Realizing that the human woman would not allow Yashua to leave with him willingly until Duffau answered, "How Devils of high ranks can escape death." In the back of his mind, Duffau sorted new information he had gleaned about the Sister away until a later time. Knowing your enemy was valuable tool; knowing how to control their minions was even better. Duffau was no idiot, he knew that the Magdalene Order would never see him as a trusted ally. _'Wasn't that the vary reason why they sent two who had the most minimal personal contact with devils in the first place?'_ he mused, turning and continuing down the hall, not pausing to see if the smaller devil followed.

Claire, noticing how Yashua lingered behind the Duke, gave the boy devil a gentle nudge. Yashua turned his head to look at her, his eyes wide and frightened.

"Go on," She said, nudging him again, "This is what we came here for. If you learn everything you can quickly, we will be able to take you home."

'_Home.'_ Yashua smiled; that word left a funny taste in his mouth, as though he bit into a cranberry fresh off of the tree. It was both pleasant and bitter, the berry would be sour, but at the same time, cleansing the pallet. Nodding his head quickly to show that he understood, and liked the idea, he trampled off in the direction the Duke had exited by a moment before, catching up soon after.

Duke Duffau did not pause in his stride, nor did he look to see if Yashua was actually behind him as he spoke, "Like all souls, devils are born and reborn again and a again. But unlike the humans, our souls 'remember' the bodies they belong to, and retain that image within our minds until it is triggered by a 'Seeded' memory." he climbed a straight staircase behind a narrow door, leading them up into the small attic.

Sensing that Duffau was waiting for him to respond, Yashua scrambled up the stairs behind him, biting back a sneeze as dust filtered into his nostrils as he asked, "What are Seeded memories, and, what do you mean retaining the image? I always looked like this." Shrugging, Yashua put his tiny hands into his pockets as Duffau walked over to a broken window, reaching his hand up to a spiked shard of glass and purposely slicing his fingers open on it's razor-sharp edge. Yashua gaped at him, taking a step forward before halting in his place as Duffau turned to look at him again, licking the blood from the slashed fingers with his tongue.

"Which is why I was so interested when I was called. That you were born with your true image visible. It is clear, however, that your imperfect Glamour was not just a slip of fate." Duffau stated, pulling a picture out of his pocket, presenting it to the small devil, who looked down at the portrait intently.

The photo was of a young man, if Yashua were to guess his age, he would say that the boy was no older than twelve. The boy was holding a baseball in one hand, and a glove in the other. He had freckles on his nose, a small smile that did not show his teeth, with thick dark hair and eyes that where nearly matching in the same tone.

"David Michael Davenport was last seen playing ball with his friends in an open parking lot across the street from here. He hit a curve ball and it crashed into that window," Duffau said, gesturing to the same window he cut himself on only moments before. Yashua remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"His friends dared him to go into 'Damned Duke's' house and retrieve it. He walked in, but he never walked out." Duffau said, accepting the photo back from the small devil, who nodded, seeming to understand.

"What happened to him?" Yashua asked, already suspecting, but wanting his theory confirmed anyway.

"In the mansion, he found his way up here, and discovered the memory of the duke." The taller devil said, placing the photograph back into his pocket, his voice only the faintest of murmurs.

"What was the memory?" Yashua asked, his voice hushed, though he did not know why they were whispering.

An eerie light flickered across Duffau's eyes for a split second as the starlight streamed through the raising dust within the unused room. Yashua's brows drew together at the bridge of his nose as Duffau walked over to an old bookshelf. It was mostly plain, with only a simple curved top crown and it struck Yashua as something that did not really fit in with all of the other furniture in Duffau's residence, even next to the rest of the hodgepodge items in the cobweb-infested attic, it looked out of place. The bearded devil knelt down and reached to the floor next to the shelf where, Yashua now noticed, a tan baseball had rested. Duffau turned his head to look at the shelf again and reached for a small lidded box with a carved star with what looked like a circle around it.

Yashua walked over to get a better view at the box. "What is it?" He asked, blinking as he noticed small markings carved into the star's outline and along the circular boarder.

"It's a portal, to Pandemonium. A gift from our Queen, made from the bones of my first slain devil brother." Duffau spoke, running his hand over the symbols for a moment before looking at the devil child. "Seeded memories are places or object which hold strong feelings to the devil who owns them. They do not fade, and they always draw the devil they belong to back to them, from life after life."

Yashua inhaled, his eyes widening, _'The photograph…'_ he thought, quickly shaking his head, "What happens if the seed isn't a strong enough memory? Or what if a the wrong devil finds it? What happens to devils who have no seeded memories from their past lives?"

Duffau returned the box to its place on the shelf, reaching up with his hand to roughly stroke his beard, plucking the hair from his chin and blowing it from his hand before he spoke. "Only a seed from a potent memory can release the devil from the reincarnation, and it would only affect the devil the memory belongs to, other devils would not be drawn to or be able to sense it. A devil without a seed would never be able to recall him or her self, and would then just live out as a human from that point on."

"And you knew, right away, who you were, when you found the box?" Yashua asked, sounding strangely relieved to Duffau's pointed ears. Unsure if he wanted to give the other devil an honest response, Duffau attempted to use his horns to listen in on the other devil's thoughts, but finding it surprisingly difficult for him to do so.

'_How could an amateur, who is unable to correctly apply his own Glamour, be capable of blocking a Read?'_ Tucking the question in his mind aside for a later time, Duffau gestured the smaller devil to sit on the floor, sitting down as well. Changing the subject, Duffau said, "Now we will teach you how to use your Glamour."

"Glamour." Yashua echoed, trying the word out on his tongue, finding it left a strange, sticky feeling, as though he had been given a spoonful of syrup. Following Duffau's example, Yashua sat down cross-legged, face to face with the older devil.

"Glamour is a limited power made by Legion—"

"What are Legion?" Yashua questioned, realizing that it seemed to have a different meaning to the devil than what humans used it as; a word that meant a Battalion or army.

"Legion are low class devils, with little intelligence. They thrive off of higher ranked devils. In exchange for sustenance, Legion assist more powerful devils in various tasks. Some humans will summon Legion to do their bidding, for a human to summon anything more powerful could be hazardous for their health." Duffau paused a moment for the full meaning of his words to sink into the younger devil's mind before continuing, "Legion, within the devil's body, are capable of rapid healing, protecting the devil from illness, and simple warping of the devil body."

"Glamour." Yashua reiterated, smiling slightly when he saw Duffau's assenting nod.

"So long as there are Legion within the devil's body, the devil has a limited amount of Glamour. Stronger devils have more Legion, and therefore have more Glamour to disguise themselves, and the reverse is also true; weaker devils have few Legion, or none at all, and have equally less Glamour." Duffau finished, his expression serious as Yashua shifted uncomfortably under his black gaze.

"Because of your limited Glamour, you cannot hide yourself completely with it, instead, you must prioritize which parts must be hidden completely, and what parts only need slight alteration, and which things could be left alone or hidden in other ways." The older devil said, appraising the smaller devil, making personal notes, himself, on what should be hidden, how much, and in what order.

Sighing and closing his eyes to concentrate, Yashua focused his mind on his power, feeling it stretch out around him like thin crape paper on the air. Slowly, he drew it back into himself, centering his efforts on the energy that surrounded his horns, pulling it in until it was flush with his skull. Moving to his wings, he repeated the same action, feeling them waver and fade into the spaces on either side of his spine.

Holding the energy in place, he paused, hearing Duffau speak in a tone that was earthy, as though raising up around him without echo. "Draw in the two clock hands on your cheeks."

Frowning slightly, not sure why Duffau wanted only the ones on his cheeks to be hidden, Yashua did as he was told, feeling the two clock hands under his eyes disappear under his skin, the four above his eyebrows still gleaming like brushed steal as they reflected the yellow glow of his unholy light as it enveloped him as he turned the metal tail on the base of his neck back into rich purple hair, which splayed in the demonically-charged air that made the windows, loose papers and sheets shudder around them.

"Blunt your ears and fangs." Duffau ordered, moving to stand as Yashua completed the task, the light fading away and the wind dying around them, the room falling silent once again as Yashua opened his eyes, their yellow dimmed into a dark amber with red undertones.

Standing and walking over to an old, full length, floor mirror, Yashua blinked, slightly surprised by the transformation. The three blood drops and four clock hands were still placed on his forehead, and on either side of his head, he could just barely feel the bump-up of bone that was his horns, skillfully hidden in his amethyst hair. His ears still had a slight point to them, but it was not nearly as drastic as the way his ears used to look. Turning to look at the duke, Yashua said, "It's bedtime for me, right? Elder never gave me a time to go to bed, and I know it's almost morning now, so should I bother sleeping?" Yashua stopped, seeing Duffau's expression seem to grow more somber.

"Sleep is important for young devils as much as it is for humans." The duke responded, giving the smaller devil all that he needed to know. Not wasting another word, Yashua nodded briskly and sneezed, the dust finally getting to him, as he walked as softly as he could across the floorboards to the stairwell, down to the open door at the bottom. Duffau followed at a more resigned pace, shutting the door behind them and locking it tightly.

"Duke Duffau," the boy's voice stammered slightly, pausing in the hallway, "What was Chrono's title?" he asked, his wide eyes glistening with an innocence that was unheard of among devils.

Duffau looked over his shoulder before fully turning to face the child, his mind pausing on how mortal the boy seemed; inherently un-devil-like. Even in his life as David, he had never truly behaved human; in fact, he had worried his mortal parents with how "detached" he was to people or things, as though he knew they were nothing that was of consequence to him. _'But this boy, Yashua has a different aura around him—One not unlike one would expect from his human counterparts.'_ A part of Duffau considered simply giving him the title Chrono had earned when he had joined with Aion in the stealing of Pandemonium's head, _'However…'_ something compelled him to respond with the one he bore before his great betrayal, before he slew one-hundred thousand of his brethren.

"Earl." With that, Duffau parted ways with the child, who stood in place, his expression dumbfounded. Yashua did not know what possessed him to ask, he knew nothing of Devil titles and what they meant, only that it seemed strangely important, but not at the same time.

'_I'll ask him to teach me that next,'_ Yashua thought, with an almost giddy smile, seeing his reflection in one of the window panes, the inky black outside rendering its surface pond-like. His amber eyes glowed and stood out from the rest of him.

"_You will be the one to take my life."_

Yashua blinked and staggered back from the glass; glimpsing, for only a second, just long enough for him to question if he had actually seen it, he saw a woman's face overlap his own, her hair as light as his was dark, and eyes as dark as his were light. His horns hummed painfully next to his ears, though they were not visible to his eyes, allowing him to "hear" her smooth voice. "Ah-a-aaah," Yashua's mouth opened of its own accord, issuing a strangled sound from the back of his throat. Snapping both his mouth and eyes shut, shaking his head to clear his mind, he turned away from the window and sped down the hallway on his short legs, refusing to stop until he had made it to the room that Duffau had kindly given for himself.

Diving into the down-feather covers, he silently thanked the duke for making him stay in his own room, though, at the time, he had to fight back the urge to protest; disliking the concept of being locked away from everyone else more than he hated being taken from home. Panting lightly, even though he was not actually winded, Yashua stared up at the tin ceiling tiles, their twisted ivy pattern seeming to echo the knot that wound itself up into his intestines.

Feeling slightly sick, Yashua placed a hand over his lips and choked, "Who are you?"

* * *

Holy crap! I, Cannot, Write, Angst. Excuse me while I beat my head onto my desk, but UGH!

Also, **Fair Warning**, my chapters will be coming more slowly as Summer comes closer—it's the busiest time of the year for me, so I may not be able to actually sit down and really do much typing as much as I would like until September.

Until next time!

Prinder


	9. Chapter 9

**The Pandemonium Moment **

**By Prinder**

This chapter is dedicated to Gabriel C. Hajicek, the son of a close friend of my family who died a few days ago. He was only a year old, and Catholic. May God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, along with the Virgin Mary, watch over his soul.

Rated: R for violence, death, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Can a Devil, a Sinner, actually be the son of god? Plots and plans unfold and Yashua's limits are tested. What kind of future is at hand and what sort of deeds are afoot?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: "talking"

_'thinking'_

**reading**

**_written_**

_"Talk Electronically sent somehow"_

**Chapter 9: Entwined**

"_But—you know me so well, Jehovah—I have something else in mind."_ The words of Satan pushed themselves back into the front of Jehovah's mind as he passed through the gates the gothic convent. The towering sentinel of the main building's steeple cast a chill shadow over the heads of many who bustled into the chapel's open doors; welcoming them in from in the brisk autumn air, as copper-colored leaves tumbled along the ground, for service.

"_Lucifer is so funny, Adonai! Can you believe that he thought he was going to -make- the Sins? Just the same way he thought he could -make- a Holy Woman, and make himself into the Savior. Doesn't it just make you tremble with excitement?"_

Church, however, and prayer service, was not what brought the esteemed Creator of Man to the sacred, yet downtrodden, paths in the valley of his people.

"_His greatest mistake was choosing Emanuel to be Greed. Oh, certainly, he has all of the qualifications, but, you can't make the sins anymore than you could make the Apostles. Not unless you are Pandemonium or God; Oh, but I believe that was intent."_

Jehovah's eyes narrowed, swearing once again to himself that, had he known what would have been made when he made Pandemonium, he never would have attempted in the first place—if only on the grounds that Satan was the longest winded devil that was ever damned. God discovered that he, too, would use his own name in vain to curse out something as abominable as the King of Hell. Glancing around him as he removed his had, he spotted one of the sisters.

"Here you go," She said sweetly, her disposition calm and serene as she handed out pamphlets for the Thanks-giving service; her straight brown bangs just peaking out from around her habit, obscuring her eyes as she bent herself over slightly to help an elderly woman to a seat in the front. "Let me help you, madam. This way, please."

Feeling a light tap on his shoulder, Jehovah turned quickly in surprise, taking notice of the young woman behind him. Her eyes were a soft rose color, and her hair was a fine, pale, lavender. _'Charity,'_ he thought, as he took in the image of Sister Azmaria.

"Excuse me, but wouldn't you like to sit down? I can help you find a seat." She offered, apologizing for startling him, her cheeks blushing a soft pink. God chuckled lightly, patting her hand in a comforting gesture.

"No, not at all, dear. I was looking for the confessional, actually." He replied, not at all surprised when she seemed to brighten with the prospect of still being able to assist him.

"I could take you there, if you would like!"

"That would be kind of you." He assented, taking her arm and allowing her to guide him back out side, along the windswept walkways to a sheltered, small hut, reclusively located among a grouping of trees. While dwarfed against the trees, the structure gave off an imposing air; why this was, it could have been many things, from the ornate carvings and stained glass windows, or maybe it was the feelings of others who had come to it before and professed sins of innumerable magnitude, it could have also been that it was a strong symbol of Catholicism—whatever the reason for it's intimidating aura, Jehovah was unfazed, and so he thanked the benevolent sister and sent her back to the church while he walked into the small enclosure.

Hearing the door open, Edward, on the other side of a screened wall—made to give those confessing a sense of anonymity—quickly tossed the magazine he was reading under his chair, and prepped himself for another one of his brilliant performances as the other man seated himself in a worn wooden chair next to the wall that separated them.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." Said the voice was of an older man, though hardly older than Edward. Nodding to himself, the Elder spoke in the most somber voice he could muster.

"When was the last time you have been to confession?" Edward asked the other man.

"Never… I have never been."

'_Well that explains the overused line…'_ Edward thought stoically before saying, "What is your sin, my son?" As much as he never enjoyed hearing about others exploits—Edward deemed God to be entirely too unfair, and sadistic, if he set it up for things to happen this way—it was the Elder's cover, and only the other nuns knew his true colors, so this was just something he would have to do. It wasn't too bad, truthfully, not many people went to the confessional, and in between visitors, he could catch up on the center-fold in the magazines that he hid in there with him. Sighing inwardly, Edward rolled his head and eyes dramatically as the other man prattled on; these days, Edward never even bothered to listen to half of what was said by the people who sat in the other half of the room. _'Just let them babble themselves out, absolve their sins, and send them on their marry way. Not so hard…'_ he thought, fighting to stay calm, _'Doesn't this fool know when to shut up?'_

"I doubt that she will forgive me, now that she is… gone…" the man said with a sigh, finally seeming to be finished with his speech.

Elder nodded to himself, his expression perfectly obscured by the wall that divided the rooms, humming thoughtfully before opening his mouth to speak, "Well, my son, it is true that you have committed some horrendous crimes, and have been bickering with your wife for so many years—I think that she knew all along that you never intended to hurt her with your actions, and the fact that she continued to stay, despite your actions, clearly shows that, while she may not have forgiven you… she did love you. But, now, your forgiveness does not lie in her, it is up to God to say if you are to be redeemed. I will absolve part of your sins, the ones committed by you and done to others…" he trailed off, quickly raising his voice to make sure he had the other man's attention, "HOWEVER, the sins you committed against your late wife, you must pray to God to find peace."

Jehovah stood up slowly from the chair, sensing that the other man was finished and moved to open the door to leave. "Thank you, Father, I shall do that." He said, exiting the small structure and slowly making his way off of the convent grounds.

Edward chuckled with barely suppressed glee, _'The fool didn't even realize I wasn't listening!'_ he thought, ducking his head out of the other door to look around. Seeing Sister Anna waving him the all-clear, he reached back under his chair and grabbed his magazine before heading back to his workshop. The spunky redhead kept pace with him, being very interested in what had him so amused, and why it took the confession so long. Edward, being a bit of a gossip in his own right, wasn't about to disappoint her—at least, not without a through pounding (which she was apt to do anyway, since he fully intended to take advantage of the situation for his own personal enjoyment).

Anna tapped her boot on the dusty wooden floor, impatiently. "Well," she demanded, her voice raising higher than usual, to indicate further how she disliked being kept in the dark, "What took you so long! I'd been waiting outside for you for fifteen minutes!"

"Yeeesh! Kids these days, I haven't even sat down yet!" the old man snapped, "At least let me get comfortable first." He said, pulling himself into a chair next to his workbench, propping his elbows onto the table as he heaved a sigh of relief. _'I almost thought I wouldn't make it this time.'_ He thought, as he moved his hands to rest on his ever-weakening knees.

Obviously, having lived as long as he has, he wasn't quite as young as he used to be. At one time in his life, he would have gladly climbed the three flights of stairs that lead into the women's quarters and raid their stash of bloomers, or chance a peak into the bathroom, but, sadly, now he could barely make it up the stairs into the room they had arranged for Yashua to stay in while he was with the old man. Originally, that room had actually belonged to the Elder, but, as his health and vitality began to fade, he opted to move his things to the first floor. The room he slept in now may have been smaller, and actually still had the specialized barrier crucifixes imbedded into the walls at all corners—because he was too old and too lazy to remove them himself—(as it used to be Chrono's room, and before him, a storage closet for keeping especially vibrant devils locked away in equally customized containers, which were moved to the training room later) it had the bonus of not needing to climb stairs; which, as much as he hated to admit, was starting to become a problem.

"Elder? Hello? Are you in there, old man?" Anna asked, a vain in the side of her head pulsated with annoyance, "Are you going to tell me or not!"

Sighing internally, Reverend Doctor Edward Hamilton decided that he wasn't in the mood for it, and actually had the desire to get some rest (something that was also becoming more difficult these days) before putting himself back to work on perfecting his newest creation—The Hymnal Bullets. Stretching his aging lips into a lecherous grin, he held up his hands and wiggled his fingers at the young Sister. "Sure… If you let me fondle your luscious titties."

Thankfully, Anna was in a benevolent mood, and only settled for screaming at him until his ears buzzed before storming out. Edward ambled himself over to his bed, sagging ungracefully onto its tired springs. "Ugh… Old age won't get me, those girls will!" He announced, vaguely wondering why he chose to take such drastic approaches to have an excuse to escape, sweating at his good fortune for once, as he laid down and pulled the covers over is form.

Edward Hamilton thought that his demise would be set in stone, maimed for being the world's oldest pervert. The heart attack he suffered from having high cholesterol, said otherwise.

The following afternoon, Sister Kate made three phone calls:

One to Edward's great-grand niece, one to the Order's Main Branch, and one to Sisters Mary and Claire.

* * *

"Yes, ma'am, I'll let them know… We're sorry. Thank you, ma'am." Claire spoke softly into the phone before returning it to its cradle. Because of the time difference, they were in the middle of dinner when the ringing of the phone on their utility box inturrupted them. Now, as she turned to look at the others, having heard the news, she found that she had lost her appetite.

Mary, who knew the second she put down the phone that something was wrong, hastily dropped her spoon into her soup and causing it to splatter onto the table, jumped up and embraced her partner. "What—"

"He's dead." Yashua spoke, cutting her off, being able to hear the whole phone conversation with his sensitive ears. He fisted his small hands as he trembled, seeming barely able to suppress the feelings that cracked and sizzled in the air in the form of pure devil energy. Clamping his eyes shut, he surged to his feet and ran out of the room. "I'm sorry."

"H-hey! Awwah," Mary exclaimed, as she ran after him, "Yashua, wait!" but the devil boy was not in a mental state to listen or understand her pleas. Claire, snapping out of her daze, moved to follow them before Duffau, who had been watching the whole scene in silence, spoke.

"Let them go." He said, eating his soup as though nothing had actually happened.

Claire stopped just shy of reaching the open door before hearing him and she turned to look over her shoulder at the duke. The light from the late evening sun that filtered in through the large windows did nothing to soften his dark and imposing visage, in fact, it seemed to only serve as a reminder just how much of an opposite to the light he was. Inwardly, Sister Claire repeated the parting words that Sister Kate had given them before they left the Order. Though she made great efforts to hide it; she was terrified of one of the highest ranked devils to ever live on earth. She couldn't tell if Mary was just as frightened as she was, but she did know that her fears were not completely irrational.

"The old man was close to him, was he?" Duffau asked, pausing to sip the cream of broccoli soup from his spoon and making eye contact with her. Obsidian black meeting dry-moss green in a silent battle to see who would crumble first under the other's stare.

"The Elder looked after him when he first came to New York. Yashua didn't want to leave him but the Elder promised that he would still be there to welcome him back." Claire explained calmly, not taking her eyes off of the older devil.

Duffau pushed his bowl away slowly, once the contents of it had been removed, and removed the napkin from his lap. "Did he?" he queried, his voice toneless.

"It wasn't in so many words, but that was what he meant."

"A pity that God didn't seem to agree." The devil duke commented as he stood up, pushing his chair away from the table.

Claire followed his path as he walked around the table and over to the door where Mary and Yashua had fled the room from. "Sir, Yashua was abandoned, from what I've heard from the other sisters, and the thought of others leaving… frightens him." She reiterated, "Sister Azmaria said that he told her that he was told that he made his father die, and he asked why a monster gets to live, and not his father, instead. This is a hard blow for him."

"If his glamour had been perfect, many of the things he experienced in the past may not have happened. Why he was born without it in place is unknown, but it is clear that he is not like normal devils."

"What do you mean, sir?" Sister Claire asked, curious.

"His glamour is in place due to conscious effort, if someone were to break that concentration, it would easily come off. For normal devils, the glamour is something as natural as breathing." Duffau replied, continuing down the hall, tracking Yashua's scent to where the boy and Sister Mary had gone. Claire followed close behind him, sorting the information away to tell Mary later.

"Sister Kate asked us to come back to New York for a short time to attend the funeral." She said. "I don't think it would be problem if we took a break from your training." She added hesitantly, unsure of how the devil would react.

"That is unnecessary, I can continue to instruct him where ever he goes. I will come with you to New York." Duffau replied, his eyes narrowed, as though daring her to protest. Claire shrank back slightly, but nodded her assent.

"You will have to stay out of the Magdalene grounds," She said, but Duffau gave her no indication that he had heard her as they came to a stop outside of the young devil's room, the door still open from when Mary must have barged in after him. Claire peered around the devil in front of her to see into the room. Mary and Yashua were both sitting on his bed, or, rather, Mary was sitting on the bed and Yashua was laying in a semi-curled up ball with his face on the blonde's knee. Claire fought down the urge to blush at the image, reminding herself that he was just turned three years old a few months ago; and was still to innocent to mean anything more by it than just needing motherly comfort. Mary, for her part, seemed to be handling the situation well, patting the boy on his back, between his shoulder blades, while she mumbled soothing words to him.

Seeing the shadows in the doorway, Mary paused her motions and looked up at them, smiling in a bright, yet somehow strained, sort of way, before lifting her other free hand to her lips in a gesture for them to be silent.

Yashua, hearing their footsteps come into the room, bit his lip and forced himself to be quiet for a moment before lifting his head from the Sister's lap, turning it slightly to regard them, the blood-drop gems on his forehead gleaming with something that Claire could not describe. Opening his mouth, his vocal chords screeched against themselves like broken glass as he bid himself to ask, "When can we go?" his tone pulling at Claire's heart. Duffau remained motionless, completely unfazed.

Claire swallowed the small lump that formed in her throat, "Sister Kate said that she would wire the money to us. Once we have it, we will buy our tickets and we'll take the train back." Pausing, she smiled, "Now that you can disguise yourself, we won't have a problem riding with other people."

"Yeah!" Marry chirped, shaking the young devil's shoulder encouragingly, "I bet the Elder's looking down at you from heaven right now! You know he's always wanted you to learn how to do that!" she said, thinking it would cheer him up. Yashua turned his tearstained face to look at the blonde Sister, his expression telling her without words that he felt responsible, effectively silencing the woman, and sending the mood in the room spiraling down into an uncomfortable quiet.

* * *

Back in New York, Sister Kate did not have the slightest idea what was happening to her out-of-state subordinates. Though, normally, she would have found it comforting to dwell on thoughts of those far away, as soon as she returned her phone to its bed it rang. She answered on the second ring, "This is Sister Kate."

"_Sister Kate, this is Minister Decard,"_ a bitterly familiar, male, voice said on the other end of the line, not pausing for acknowledgment, he said, _"I heard about the -unfortunate- news. You must be devastated!"_

Kate fought the urge to growl. Decard was from the Florida Branch and was _constantly_ plotting for ways to abscond with what he considered a cushy position in New York. It was a known fact that the New York Branch housed the very best exorcists around, even the Students there were considered to be leagues ahead of the other branches. It was also a well known fact that Decard thought it was only luck and good fortune that landed Kate, his rival since their Novice days, the position when Reverend Hamilton stepped down.

Sister Kate scowled at the receiver, as though it would transmit her displeasure to the man on the other end. _'That miserable, scheming, bastard! He's going to try to use this as an excuse to get me moved to another branch!'_

As though oblivious to Kate's hunch, Decard continued to ramble on the other end of the line,_ "It must be a very emotional time for you, I understand. Which is why I asked the Main Branch—"_

'_Ohohhhh No, no! No you don't.'_ She thought, before cutting him off, already two steps ahead as she said, in an altogether too cheerful tone, "That's so GENEROUS! Come to think of it, I had been wondering what I was going to do. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I was thinking about what would happen when I would retire. Now that Edward Hamilton is gone, there is a space open for someone to take his place as our researcher, and I'm confident that I could fill those shoes."

On the other end, Kate could almost hear the gears in Decard's thick head grinding. Inwardly, she suppressed a chortle, _'Thought you had it all figured out, didn't you, bimbo? I let you have unsupervised control once, I'm not going to be so lenient this time.' _She could just picture his blonde hairpiece slipping off of the top of his cranium as he would lurch forward in his chair, his face screwed up tightly with surprise and confusion.

As though she were capable of seeing visions, Decard positioned himself in the same manner that she had in her mind. _'She is making this far too easy. Last time it took an unanimous order from the Chairmen before she even relinquished her position TEMPORARY, why isn't she putting up a fight now?'_ his mind reeled. He had been expecting a battle of epic proportions from the raven-haired Reverend Mother, not this near open invitation to her doorstep. "W-Well! That's very… M-m-mature of you," he stammered.

"_When should I be expecting your arrival?"_ her voice asked, calmly, on the other end of the line as he struggled to right his hairpiece; he quickly glanced out the window to see if any of his exorcists had seen, fearing that if they did, he would be made into a laughing stock. Realizing that he had been silent too long, Decard cleared his throat.

"I suspect that I will be there in time for the funeral, I have to pay my respects to the good man, after all." He answered. Kate, on the other end, bit back a snort.

'_Please…Elder hated you, and you would only go to his funeral to make sure that he was actually dead.'_ She thought, recalling more than one occasion in her youth where the Elder had gone out of his way to make Decard's life difficult for her benefit; she never had to ask, she knew that the Elder had the same opinion for Decard as Decard had for him. "I guess even you can respect him, Decard." She commented offhandedly, sidestepping the path the conversation was about to take.

"_Now that things are settled, I expect my room to be ready when I get there. Good day!"_ He announced, abruptly hanging up before she could reply.

Kate growled at the mouthpiece on the phone before slamming it back down onto it's hook. "WHY THAT LITTLE—!" She screamed, unleashing her rage on the empty office. _'He only said that to get under my skin!'_ her mind bellowed as she glared holes into the door at the other end of the room, _'His room, INDEED! The HEADMASTER'S bedroom, he means!'_ Sighing, she picked up her pen and returned to marking up reports, saying unto the empty air, "I will have to encourage the other sisters to finish packing up Edward's belongings ahead of schedule, so we can move my things into his place. It won't be easy, the death was hard on them, but we have little choice now." Hearing a knock on the door, she looked up, "Enter."

Sisters Azmaria and Anna walked into the room, the later of the two bore slightly red and puffy eyes and nose; showing that she had been crying. The other, Anna, who had been the last to see him alive, looked little better, but was actually doing worse than her partner; Sister Kate knew this because she had received a report from Father Raphael, the head doctor, that mentioned Anna's breakdown earlier that day, though it did not give many details.

"How is the progress?" Kate asked carefully, weary that any wrong move at this time could cause them to fall apart.

Azmaria, wiping her nose with a handkerchief, answered, "The Embalmers have removed his body."

Anna nodded quickly before raising her own voice to add, "I just finished telling all of the other exorcists and Brother Michael has agreed to help organize the packing and delivering of his things to his great-grand niece," before having to stop, as her voice cracked painfully and she had to cover her mouth. Azmaria patted her friend's shoulders with her hands before finishing the speech for her.

"Father Gabriel said that he would catalogue all of his experiments and try to see if the Elder left any notes or a log of some sort to explain his progress." She said, her ruby eyes dull and lacking their usual luster. Sister Kate shook her head inwardly, had she known that this would happen, she would not have sent them out on late-night patrol, as it was very clear that not only were they still grieving, but they were nearly dead on their feet.

Closing her eyes briefly in thought, Kate nodded to herself before looking at them again, saying sternly, "Go get some rest. You are dismissed."

Curtsying politely in turn, both nuns turned and left with barely a murmur of thanks to their leader. Once the door had closed gently behind them, Kate reached up and removed her glasses to rub her eyes, trying to convince herself that she had simply strained them with her work that made them water up.

'_It's only the work. Yes, that has to be it.'_ One part of her mind said, while the other part quickly said a small prayer, asking for forgiveness for lying to herself before completely giving in to the loss.

Sitting on a green bench in Central Park, God quirked his lips up slightly as he amused himself by feeding the birds bread crumbs as he contemplated Lucifer's next move. _'So he will attempt to make the same mistakes again. Satan must have a very good reason for not telling Lucifer that he can trigger Magdalene to recall herself without the ritual of atonement—a rite, when used, that causes serious repercussions. Those were the reasons why I let her soul keep the stigmata, to serve as a deterrent.'_

Lifting his face so that the sun slipped under the brim of his hat, the pigeons scattered and took flight around him. _'But that only means that he needs the girl's causality to spiral out of control, but for what reason…'_

"_To give her perversion the upper-hand."_

Adonai's eyes narrowed in the glaring sunlight, his lip quirked up with bemused irony; the maker of light, shielding himself from the light, afraid of his own shadow. Closing his eyes, he allowed his essence to be carried to the celestial voice that beckoned him. _"Pandemonium, why are you helping me? I thought you agreed with Satan…"_

In the darkness, her skin glowed pale, silver, light. Though he was still in the land of the living, God had no boundaries, no living flesh to hold him down, and he traveled through over-lapping spaces that made Heaven and Hell in the same way that one would fall into dreams. Slowly, Pandemonium turned her head to regard the creator, her eyes lipid pools of blood shook with underlying torment and distrust.

"_It was because of her first instability that Satan was able to leave Hell. The same way you used her when she became tainted to leave Heaven; you made her into a temporary perversion to allow you passage."_ She said, her lips unmoving. God flinched inwardly, knowing that it was his fault alone that made her look at him in such a way. Power-hungry, he could accept that was one of his faults, but if God had one thing besides having a jealous bone, it was the unwavering compassion he held for beings that he created; regardless of whether they were human, angel, devil, or even the potent woman before him now.

"It needed to be done. It was only a spit second that was needed for us to cross onto Earth, the perfect openings were made by Lucifer." He responded with a sigh. It seemed, that even though he made everything around them, he had little control over anything. Certainly, just as things are made, they can be unmade, but that was the sum total and full scope of his abilities without Pandemonium. The bitter fact was, without her power, her astral, all he could do was make and destroy things, and in a situation that involved Satan and Lucifer, he needed skills that he did not have on his own to face them directly.

"_But you both lack power. So it will be a race between the both of you, if Lucifer performs the Ritual of Atonement, to make it to me before the other."_ She spoke, seeming to drive the all too obvious point he had made within himself, home. Thought marred Adonai's aged features.

"So he intends to use Magdalene's causality to open the gates to the other worlds. Which will be how Lucifer will brake into my domain…" God mused, "How very cunning. While my angels and I are busy trying to deal with your son, Satan would be making his way to you, presumably with me completely unaware of his scheme."

"_Yes…"_ she nodded, returning him to his place in the park, _"You must not let him, Jehovah, if you do, he will destroy everything."_

Opening his eyes to the physical world, looking up to the sky, he murmured, "Not just destroy, dear Pandemonium, it is worse than that. If it were destruction, I would have no trouble at all in stopping him, no, his goal isn't to annihilate the human race, but to twist and reshape the structured fabric of space and time itself and the roles of all who encompass it." He glared at the glowing orb that threatened to blind him, conjuring a cold-front to make clouds to blot out it's face. "Already he has set Heaven and Hell into a state of flux. It will only be a matter of time before they solidify into reversed perversions."

Standing slowly, his joints groaning with mild complaint, he adjusted his coat to block out the chill air and ambled down the leaf-crowded sidewalk. _'Heaven will be full of darkness, and Hell will be full of light. Devils shall become like man, and man like devils, and angels shall fall from grace and the worlds will collide. That is Apocalypse, the perversion of Rapture, Satan's great plan, formed on the back of that ignorant Lucifer!'_

Satan chuckled dryly, humoring his "Nephew," as he, once again, boasted his brilliant scheme. _'There is no mistaking it, it IS brilliant…But then again—'_

"Once we have the 11 Legion in our possession, and the Sins have awakened with their seeds, we can finally set the wheels into motion." Aion announced, turning in place, his arms held wide in a flourish. Satan chuckled again and sipped his wine, seeming to not mind that the silver headed devil had interrupted his thoughts.

"And what do you suppose their seeds will be? They must be attached to strong emotions, a powerful event, for it to act as a trigger." Satan asked, leaning his back firmly into the reclined, padded, lawn chair. It was a rare occasion where they both had the urge to sit out on the porch, three floors above the room where most of their works were kept safely locked away, and Satan, for one, was not going to miss out on the chance to enjoy himself, even if it was a little too bright out for his tastes.

Aion sighed, his smile falling away and his brows drooping, showing Satan a glimpse at how worn the sinner had become, despite his attempts to put on a good show of someone who was completely and utterly confidant. "You haven't an idea what those could be, either, then…" Aion said, falling into the chair next to his mentor with a soft thump, the white trench coat hanging limply off of its sides stopping just before it touched the floor.

"I wasn't inclined to notice their interests at the time, I had my own things to take care of, you realize." Satan said snappishly, before raising a hand to silence the other's reply before continuing to say, "Still, it would be good for you to know that a seed is not limited to being only objects, living things can be a source for a seeded memory."

"Well that tells me what Rizel's seed will be." Aion muttered, causing Satan to chuckle at him once again. Silence falling upon them as Aion turned his face to watch the sunset through the white rail-posts that made the framed porch, which overlooked the Arizona desert, tan sandstone rock turning deep orange and red in the fading light. _'At least it is no longer so hot as it was in the Summer. 120 degrees in the shade, on the "cool" days was not pleasant, not even Pandemonium got to be so sweltering. It isn't so bad here, when it is almost Winter.'_ He thought, his mind drifting.

"Well, Lucifer, how many of the Legion do we have now?" Satan asked, returning the violet eyed devil to the subject at hand, speaking as though he were only commenting on the weather.

Squaring his shoulders to remove his back from the slouch he had, unintentionally, placed it, Aion answered, "Two. But Ewen does not realize it yet."

"Oh so you will make the Legion, then, is it? That's rather risky, considering what happened the last time you made another take on a role that was not theirs." The spiky-haired blonde commented, not failing to notice the ever-so-slight wince made by his relative.

"I was so sure that Chrono was the one. We actually grew up together, born in the same nest." Aion said, tossing his hands up into the air and shaking his head, incredulous, "He had all of the signs of being Greed! The possessiveness, the want… It fit him to a T! Who would have been able to guess that he could have been Emanuel? There is not a single holy book from any religion that suggests that a 'Son of God' was a Devil."

"That's because they were written by man, Lucifer. The men that served him, actually, were the only ones to survive him, and did not know or realize his… Hellish constructs." The King of Hell said, "And, for a fact, he takes after your father, Shekanyah, that way, who is just as greedy, if not more so, than his human counterparts." Satan chuckled, seeming amused by something, "Come to think of it," he added, "So did you."

Aion snorted and gave him a dry look over the brim of his glasses. He still did not fully buy into Satan's belief that he was, and is, the fabled Fallen Angel Lucifer, nor did he still completely accept that his "sword," Chrono, was Jesus (or, rather, Emanuel, as Satan seemed to be fond of calling him, though the names were interchangeable). The fact that the King of Hell, as he deemed himself, was willing to assist the devil who destroyed Pandemonium, did not slip past Aion's eyesight without intense scrutiny. _'It would be an immense understatement to say that I don't trust him.'_

"Well, but that was a long time ago…" Satan said, as though he noticed the tenseness in the air, turning the subject away from the path it was headed. "But the question now, is, what course will you—" Satan paused, looking over his shoulder, "Come on out, Holy." He said in a clear voice, looking at the door leading into the house that was slightly ajar.

Aion, feigning indifference, leaned back in his chair and stared up at the wood paneling on the over-hang of the porch. It was slightly weathered, gray, but if he concentrated, sometimes he could make out shapes in the grain still; a task he busied himself with as the woman in question pulled the door inward until there was a large enough gap for her to slip through, not bothering to shut it behind her.

"Master," She spoke tonelessly to Satan, who lifted a graceful eyebrow at her greeting, "I came to alert you to when he had fallen asleep, as you asked me." More than her voice was dull and dead, Aion noted as he watched them from the corner of his eyes, her eyes also lacked that tell-tale luster one associates with the living, and her skin was slightly ashen in color.

Had he not known better, he would have believed her to just be an undead shell, like he had made with the Jewel Witch at one time, but it was actually more that Satan had complete and total control over her mind and body. Aion's right eyebrow twitched slightly as he contemplated the situation. _'With this power, even if I desired to deviate from my current plans, I suspect that he would not let me.'_ Sensing the need for a backup plan, as he was starting to feel no better than a pawn (oh how he despised that feeling. He HATED to be controlled; it was the reason he rebelled against Pandemonium in the first place, and he was not pleased with the feelings of Déjá Vu these events were making), he stood up slowly from where he had been lounging.

"Then Ewen is ready. You have seen to the preparations?" Satan questioned his puppet.

"Yes, Master."

"How delightful."

Aion cleared his throat, informing the senior devil that he had another announcement to make. Satan craned his head around, the bones shifting and cracking in his neck as he did so, to give white-clad devil his attention. "Yes?" Satan asked, prodding him to speak.

"I have an appointment to keep." Aion said cryptically.

"How tragic." Satan answered, seeming only mildly disappointed, "Shall we wait until you come back?"

"By all means, no," the reincarnated Lucifer replied, turning to walk down the stairs, his coat tails flaring out behind him as he made his descent. "Have your fun for now, and when I come back, I may have more news."

"How pleasant."

Chapter Nine End

* * *

Well, I tried to make it longer, because, when put onto a web page the word wrap is different so it ends up looking much shorter than my chapters actually are (on average, they are about 12 pages long in Word, this chapter, however, is sporting a whopping 14 pages).

It starting to get a little more warped now, isn't it? No one can trust anyone now, it seems. Oh, and before all of you start wanting to hurt me for killing off Edward, let me just say: It was a long time coming. The dude was pushing 90, for Pete's sake! Have some mercy!

Peace!

Prinder


End file.
